Organisations in Australia and New Zealand face some of the strictest regulatory requirements in the world (e.g., APRA, Essential Eight, and IRAP), but being audit-ready is very different from being customer-ready.
Consumers evaluate your brand against the smoothest digital experiences they encounter across any sector. If a competitor offers a guest checkout option or passwordless sign-in, any extra steps in the customer journeys you have defined give prospects a reason to switch.
Authentication Friction Is a Significant Cource of Lost Revenue in ANZ
According to the 2026 Customer Identity Trends Report, featuring global surveys of developers, senior leaders, and consumers commissioned by Okta, at least three-quarters of ANZ consumers polled said they would likely stop or abandon what they’re doing (e.g., researching, purchasing, or signing up) when using apps or websites if:
- Asked to create an account to see key information → 77%
- Asked to verify their identity multiple times → 76%
- Login or verification takes too long → 75%
Moreover, roughly half of developers and senior leaders we polled from ANZ report that, to the best of their knowledge, abandonment due to authentication friction is at least a “significant” problem that they’re actively trying to address.
Customer Identity Should Be a Competitive Advantage, not a Time Sink
Key Stats:
- >13% — Engineering time spent on CIAM.
- 8% — Identity is a competitive advantage.
On average, devs and senior leaders from ANZ organisations report that more than 13% of their engineering team’s time is spent building, maintaining, or operating customer identity and access management (CIAM). For that level of investment, brands should get more than compliance and leaky customer journeys.
A modern CIAM platform simplifies compliance while also equipping developers with the features and integration points to quickly build low-friction, customer-centric experiences.
Right now, only 8% of ANZ brands report that they’ve “solved” identity and turned it into a competitive advantage. Let’s change that.
Unresolved identity friction is actively leaking revenue and creating new challenges for businesses deploying AI agents, where trust and control are critical. Read the 2026 Customer Identity Trends Report to explore how modernizing customer identity helps organizations deliver convenience without compromising security, reducing the friction that slows growth today while enabling the trust and control needed for AI-powered experiences.
Unless otherwise cited, all data in this brief comes from the surveys commissioned for the 2026 Customer Identity Trends Report.