eIDAS as a business driver for online commerce in Europe?

16 May eIDAS as a business driver for online commerce in Europe?

One of the challenges business have in managing their digital transformation is the concern about security and regulatory repercussions of electronic signing of contract documents. From September 2018, the use of electronic identification (eID) and signatures will become a (much more usable) reality when accessing online services and confirming transactions for European citizens and companies.

The eIDAS regulation will provide a legal framework for the use of eIDs and trust services on advanced electronic signatures and seals in cross-border digital transactions.

What is eIDAS?

The EU regulation 910/2014 or eIDAS enacted by the European Parliament in July 2014 and fully adopted by the European Commission by September 8, 2015 as an expansion of Directive 1999/93/EC will allow Europeans to use their own national electronic identification schemes (eIDs) to access public services in other EU countries where eIDs are available.

The European eIDAS regulation enables a network of trust service providers enabling Citizen-to-Business-to- Government secure and trusted electronic service provisioning.

Examples of national eIDs today

National ID programs over the years have been creating trusted digital identities or eIDs for citizens in many EU countries and globally. One of the most advanced national eID programs has been in Estonia which has, through use of electronic signatures, been able to offer multi-channel access to online services to its citizens and streamline its own processes.

One of the recent examples of the new kind of national federation networks is the Finnish Trust Network (FTN) which is a cloud-based mechanism for connecting large scale, consumer facing services with trusted identity and service providers. The Finnish Trust Network not only relies on eIDs issued by the government but also recognises the electronic identities issued by commercial identity providers such as banks and mobile operators.

Also Netherlands, Austria and Germany have recently managed made it possible to use Austrian or German eID to access the Dutch governmental services.

Opportunities for the service providers

In the EU-wide digital single market, the use of these national IDs will not be limited only to accessing governmental services. The regulation will positively impact sectors where there is a need for reliable identification and strong authentication of parties to a business transaction.

• EU cross-border market a potential for business growth
• Trusted credentials for fulfilling regulatory requirements e.g. PSD2 and Anti-Money Laundering (AML)
• Improved customer experience without face-to-face verification
• Verified identities to check credit rating and age
• Lower your risk on GDPR related sanctions by relying on 3^rd party eIDs

As the usage of national eIDs will expand within EU, Ubisecure’s customers are able to benefit on the operational cost-savings and the new business opportunities available.

If you want to hear more about how you can enable strong authentication to your customer-facing services that is familiar, fast and simple to your end users, please Contact Us.