Commitment Decision

Editor's note

Additional content is needed here.

Short Description

A commitment decision (of a party in a business transaction) is the decision of that party whether or not to commit to that business transaction, i.e. (promise) to fulfill the obligations that the associated transaction agreement proposal would impose on that party once it were signed.

In the DEMO transaction model, this decision either leads to the canceling of the transaction (if either party decides not to commit), or to the execution of the transaction (if both parties have decided to commit).

Typically, a party will decide to commit if all of the following conditions are met:

1. the party knows what it is expected to do, and what it will get in return;
2. the party assesses the cost of the transaction to be lower than its benefits (there is a net profit);
3. the risks that the party perceives to be associated with the transaction (once committed to) are acceptable.

The relevance of this for SSI is that these conditions are the sources for the party's information (data) need, and determine the answers to questions such as:

• what data do I need from what kinds of credentials so that I can make this decision?
• what assurances need to come with the data so that it qualifies as valid for making this decision? The answers to these questions are relevant for a party's ability to formulate a (presentation) request.