EU Business Wallets – Shaping the Future of Digital Identity in Europe

Hello everyone. Yes, so my name is Florin Coptil, I am from Robert Bosch and I'm driving the Digital Transformation Initiative inside the Bosch Group. It's very good that the speaker before me was exactly touching this point of the regulation which are coming, especially in the AMRA regulation and so on, because exactly this topic we'll try to show you here how it can be solved.

And my main focus at Bosch is the digital identity and the strategic adoption of the digital wallets for a broad range of business domains, starting with the KC or know your customer, know your supplier, till to adoption into the supply chain direction or even to the products. And for me it's a pleasure to be here to discuss this topic which will change, in fact, the European landscape and the business wallets are there and they will shape, in fact, the future of the digital identity in Europe.

Before we are going to a session overview, the main point is what we see today in the digital identity, they are not any longer just a logging-in effect. This is becoming a foundation for the trust across the entire digital economy.

And in the today overview I will present you some domains where the European business wallets, business wallets and this technology already transform the businesses, how they will impact the actual processes and also the regulatory compliance which are already coming from the EU, from the national level or from the EU level, how this verified data enables the digital trust economy beyond identity. And, not by the least, the emerging world which everybody discuss, product wallets, smart agents and so on.

And by the end of the talk I hope that I will convince you that the business wallet is not just a simple technical foundation that will come, this is in fact a strategic framework which can help Europe to conduct businesses in more secure, faster and sovereign way. And when we discuss about the technology, I pick up right now some domains where exactly this happens. And we discuss here now not only about the technical, theoretical concepts, we discuss here about concrete domains where the digital identity and verifiable data are fundamentally reshaping the process.

The first one is the SPR, the Eco-Design for Sustainability and Product Regulation. The sustainability attributes and the material composition which are available for the products can be instantly accessed and verified through the entire product life cycle. In the supply chain, the trust and the provenance are becoming strategic assets.

That means all the verification process which we are doing right now with static PDF files, with emails and manual processes, this can be completely escaped and using the supplier attestation we can travel, secure the product from the product to a verification inside the organization or a national border. The third one is the financial and business onboarding of the processes from business onboarding processes which can be drastically reduced. We showed last year exactly the case of how you can onboard a company, how you can onboard a supplier. Now we go beyond that.

And that's why I said that it's not only on the theoretical level right now, they are going in practical. So we are piloting these concepts in so-called large-scale pilots together with companies in Germany on the national level or the European level for exchanging the registry information, ultimate beneficial owner data, shareholder information, and this can be exchanged as verifiable business credentials directly issued from the trusted source.

The next one is the VAT regulation which will come in 2028 where the wallets can sign the invoices and then become in this form a trusted attestation and will increase the importance in the context of the upcoming EU transition reporting system from 2028.

The digital product passport where the EU business wallet will play an important role, not only for identification of so-called actors with legitimate interest, it doesn't matter if it's a person or a company or a public sector, market surveillance, all these sectors can be identified and verified instantly and afterwards can be used inside the processes to make the verification for different products registration inside the EU.

And not by the least, the wallets for products and smart mobility where we see that the wallets are no longer any more limited to the person or organization, the products themselves can become an active digital participant. And this will be a major shift in the direction of the automation and trusted digital economy. And with this approach, we hope that the company can do a faster business onboarding by preserving the privacy and maintaining their control over the data.

And we're building such a sovereign European infrastructure for digital identity, this is crucial for the European interest in order to strengthen the trust in this digital economy. And now let's take a look on the core part. So everybody knows we discuss about the EODI wallets, we discuss about the business wallets. The business wallets is in fact a framework that will transform how the people, organization, these first two actors, then will come the products and agents which interact with each other.

The first is the person which will have the natural citizen with EODI wallet which holds the important credentials. But this is very good for establishing the relation. But the important point is afterwards what is coming and these are the additional attestation like the diplomas, the power of attorney attestation, which can be used in order to make the authentication and verification with businesses. From the company side, we have the legal entity which has also a wallet, it's called the European business wallet, with their identity called European business wallet owner identification.

And additional attestation like registration from the national register, shareholding, and other attestation which can be used in order to authenticate and verificate with each other, with a person or with another company. The third one is the product. And now it's coming very interesting for many actors in the industry area, where we see that the product can be a service, an asset or a thing. This will have also digital representation, can be an asset ID which can be issued by an organization, but can be verified by the person or verified by another organization.

And the final, the agent, which will be a digital representative that can act on behalf of another actor. This agent can have an ownership rights or power of attorney or a delegate concept, and he can coordinate and orchestrate the interaction inside the entire network. In each relationship which is established between these four actors, we discuss about attestation, and that means the credentials which are provided inside that give the capability and authority which is much more than just identify something. And that's why we discuss about the trust without borders.

I can communicate with everyone. And let's show you an example now how it's working from the process item from the regulation which will match very good for the previous speaker in this regard. From the organization point of view, we discuss about the legal entity which will be, which will have in control a so-called business wallet, and this business wallet will convert all the manual processes which we are knowing today in automatic processes. And let's start with the first one. The first one is the case in case perspective. That means know your customer and know your supplier.

And we already have challenges today which are not solved, and this can be fully automatized with a new business wallet in future. These are, for example, the cases which are piloted right now inside the so-called large-scale pilots, national or cross-border cases like we built. The second one, which is the complicated one, is the undemanding laundry case where already the manual process of the case in case cannot scale on the level which is required on the undemanding laundry.

There we discuss about verification of the ultimate beneficial order, periodic review, sanction list checking, proofing automatically. This cannot be possible, and that's why we say that we can try that, how this can be covered. And these cases are piloting in the way built, for example, together with banks and around the KSC process in the context of the current and upcoming regulation. And where we can check, for example, how a business opening a bank account can be performed from weeks or months to minutes.

In this case, in national and cross-border cases scenarios, for example, with banks from Germany, like Deutsche Bank, or with additional providers from Europe, and we try then to take the input from these tests and provide it to everybody to make it available. The next one is the simplification package where the regulation recommends the EO business wallet as a standardized digital contact. That means the declaration of conformity which belongs to the product can be shared directly in this form.

Clear, this can be represented by the smart agent in this case. The next one is the EO Data Act where a verification of the data recipient is required. And this can be instantly done for an unknown business relationship. That means I can fully automatize identification and verification of the person or the legal entity and also exchange the data. If we go forward to the direction of the digital product passport, like I said, so the identification of the requester of the so-called person with legitimate interests is completely supported.

That means submission to the European Commission in order to register the digital product passport. It doesn't matter if it's on the instance level for the product or for product. This can be implemented. And also market surveillance has full control over the data which are shared. The invoices become also part of this network trust. But this is what you already know maybe. The interesting stuff is coming now. And this happened the following. So the attestations which are created inside one relationship becomes or generates more value beyond the original purpose.

And this happened exactly in these cases. I picked up six of them. The IBAN attestation which is shared in the financial sector will be issued by the home bank to the legal entity. And this can be used afterwards in order to make an onboarding in the Know Your Supplier process.

The same, for example, invoice which is attested in onboarding a supplier or onboarding a customer can be used afterwards in the tax reporting. And this we call it so-called network effect where the trust across every business relation interaction make the entire economy more efficient and secure. And now when we go to the emerging world with the product and agent view, I pick up one example which is very relevant for us. This is the connected vehicle. And in this ecosystem, the vehicle is no longer a product.

So this will be a smart agent which has own identity and he must interact with multiple actors. From one side, we have the manufacturer which will attest that this product belongs to him at the production time. That means he gets a so-called asset ID and he can go then afterwards filling with the static data. Dynamic data, digital product passport, additional field data from the supplier. Then the second actor is coming. The second actor which is the driver and the passengers and the driver must interact also with the product in order to present his driving license in order to drive the car.

Then the identity of the car also needs to be presented in order to be presented afterwards for another enabled operations. And we have the last passenger which will use, in fact, this product to provide the identity to the car in order to secure payments. Even provided by the smart agent in the car or by himself. That is the decision of the use cases. And when we go forward, this is not stop here. So we'll go then forward to the direction of the leasing partners which will own and lease the vehicles and they will interact with these products to monitor the asset sales or contract relationship.

We have the service partner which can also interact with the car in order to parking, charging, paying the bills and provide other information. And in the moment that the product starts with this activity and he's able to do that and that's we can see that it's possible with the wallet functionality. The wallet itself based on their sensors and in their fields data can generate that station which can be used afterwards by others. And one example for that is the public authority which requires the CO2 emission for that.

And in this case, we see that the product is not anymore just that this car is not a product. It's in fact a smart agent which interacts with everybody and must interact with everybody in order to provide these businesses. And when this interaction is done and everything we don't, we are going now to the next level when we call it.

In fact, then so-called we reach, we go over the Internet of Things, we go in the Internet of Trusted Things. We can trust really of this product is doing that. That means every interaction is signed, every data port is verified and every actor is identified in this ecosystem. And the main question which is coming is always why should we use the business wallet? Everybody asks that. Why should we take it and use it for the business wallet? And we see now two aspects. From one side, we see a change in the paradigm of the interaction. The first one is the sovereignty and IP protection.

That means the data are remaining in-house and I am in fact an owner identity provider. I'm ensuring that the data stay in the control of myself and the data will not be pushed to outside. I will provide only attestation for that. The second point is the electronic attestation attributes which provide an exchange without an intermediate party. That means I can exchange the data much faster. And the third one is I have one endpoint which can I discuss with a person, organization, a product or an agent. And for the business side, we see that clear that we have a cost reduction.

Clearly in the KAC and KAS, that can be presented. And there we have a seam line in the process, less time, lower costs. But also from the compliance perspective, we are compliant with all the regulation which the previous speaker already specified. EU Data Act, IMLR regulation, ASPR regulation. And the third one, I think this is very important for the company, they want to grow. And in order to grow, they need an infrastructure. And exactly this infrastructure provides that.

That's why we are thinking that with the business wallets and with the complete tests which are running inside the last three pilots, we are trying to connect the whole economy and that's to provide an ecosystem where this activity can be done. Thank you for your time. And in case you have questions. Thank you. Thanks very much. We're running terribly long, I know. We're eating into the coffee time. There are a couple of questions. One of them is very long. So I'm going to go for the shorter ones.

Business wallets are a European standard and this might discourage organizations that operate in different continents from using it. Do you think this could go beyond European countries? Definitely. So especially in the industry area, we don't discuss about the supply run inside Europe. We need also to import supply, for example, from Asia, China and whatever. And this is exactly one of the concepts that need to be tested and proved inside the LSP. How we can onboard, for example, somebody outside of Europe. And for that, there are some ideas from the European Union side.

Who is responsible for the governance? Do you make this onboarding and so on?

Okay, thank you very much. Warren Cupsil.