The European Credit Sector Associations  (ECSAs) look forward to a Toolbox that is a common, openly available standard that enables the development of multiple, interoperable e-ID solutions and which incentivises private sector schemes to participate.
      
    
    
      The European Credit Sector Associations  (ECSAs), submitted joint feedback
 on 30 August to the European Commission’s initiative for an EU digital 
ID scheme for online transactions across the Member States.
The ECSAs include the European Banking Federation (EBF), the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) and the European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB).
The organisations welcome the Commission’s proposal, announced on 3 June, for a regulation establishing a framework for a European Digital Identity,
 as well as the high ambitions outlined in the initiative, which 
represent a positive development in the creation of a future-proof EU 
single digital market.
A European digital identity will make it possible to offer faster 
onboarding processes and improve customers’ user experience while 
ensuring the same level of security as face-to-face onboarding. The 
ECSAs believe that the proposal will ultimately contribute to 
facilitating the adoption of digital banking services.
The Commission proposal aims to provide an ecosystem of credentials 
leveraging a new wallet architecture of several ID solutions, which 
holds the potential to further increase innovation for the benefit of 
all European businesses and citizens. The proposed decentralised model 
fosters personal autonomy and increased personal data protection, giving
 users control over their identity attributes.
The ECSAs believe the proposal will incentivise the Member States to 
be more expedient in developing e-ID solutions with a wide scope of 
usage and potentially much higher adoption rates. It also provides 
grounds for some attributes to be validated against public sources. This
 is a welcome development, particularly in processes where a high level 
of assurance of these attributes is necessary, for example, the KYC 
process. When acting as relying parties, banks should be aware of the 
chain of trust in data sharing (including actors involved) and should be
 able to promptly check the validity of credentials.
Call for banking sector’s involvement in the Toolbox 
The ECSAs appreciate the cooperation between the European 
Institutions, Member States and the private sector. Member States should
 cooperate in a coordinated manner towards a Common Toolbox. The 
European digital identity should build on existing (and upcoming) 
national notified e-ID solutions. The ECSAs believe that the banking 
sector should also be involved in the development of the Toolbox. Banks 
can be key partners in drafting a roadmap that ensures successful e-ID 
adoption given the wide scope of use cases and related implementation 
costs.
It will be key to establish a common technical architecture that 
enables the private sector to integrate any digital wallet developed 
within this regulatory framework without additional technical burden, 
regardless of where it is issued.
The ECSAs look forward to a Toolbox that is a common, openly 
available standard that enables the development of multiple, 
interoperable e-ID solutions and which incentivises private sector 
schemes to participate.
About the ECSAs e-ID Task Force
The ECSAs e-ID Task Force brings together experts from 36 financial 
institutions and national banking associations with the goal of 
expressing a common position for the whole sector on Digital Identity. 
The Task Force stands ready to further engage on the strategic issue of 
digital identity with the Commission, the EU co-legislators and a wide 
range of stakeholders both at European and national level.
EBF
      
      
      
      
        © EBF
     
      
      
      
      
      
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