Who will pay for the EUDI Wallet, Signicat asks

Europe’s plan to give each of its citizens a digital ID by 2026 has a big question looming over it: Who will pay for the EU Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet?

Although the EU plans to involve the private sector in the creation of the digital ID, there is little talk going on about sustainable business models, according to identity verification company Signicat.

“Without viable payment mechanisms, the system risks relying entirely on government funding, which may not be ideal,” Jon Ølnes, the company’s tribe lead of Signing and Trust Services writes in a new blog post co-published with Vice President of Digital Identity Esther Makaay.

One example is the (Qualified) Electronic Attestation of Attributes (QEAA/EAA) providers, which according to eIDAS, is a (qualified) trust service that is expected to be paid, usually through agreements with their customers. However, there is still the question of who the customer will be.

In some cases, QEAA providers may be paid by information sources, for example, universities paying a provider to make proofs of degrees available in the EUDI Wallet. In other cases, a user could pay to get proof of their university degree.

Right now, service providers are usually the ones who pay for trust services, since they benefit the most from getting reliable and easy-to-use information about users. But under eIDAS rules, there must be no link between the service provider and the EEA provider. The same issue comes up if there’s a fee for using the EUDI Wallets, according to Signicat.

The Norwegian company also proposes four models of payments with the first and the most likely is creating a billable event towards the EEA provider.

“The transaction will create a billable event at the EAA provider, and invoicing or other type of payment can be done towards the actor asking for the validation,” says Ølnes

Other options include creating a clearinghouse in the EUDI Wallet infrastructure, using intermediaries acting on behalf of relying parties and employing smart contracts.

“Use of ledgers, notably the European EBSI initiative, is not specified for the EUDIW infrastructure but is being studied by the DC4EU pilot,” he continues.

Signicat is currently working on EUDI Wallet pilots as a member of the EUDI Wallet Consortium (EWC). The consortium is looking at organizational identity which involves legal persons identity. The business-to-business (B2B) ecosystem might be the biggest one within EUDI Wallet, Makaay said during a recent webinar.

Article Topics

digital ID  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet  |  EU Digital Identity Wallet Consortium (EWC)  |  Europe  |  Signicat