Our panel, as obviously, I'll ask each of the panel members to just give themselves a brief introduction, just a one-liner, keep it real short, so as we've got time for questions as much as any, to introduce themselves, and then we'll kick off with the first question, which we'll go from left to right for, so please go ahead. Hello, my name's Mike. I'm working for Ergon Informatik.
We have an identity and access management system, and since about four to five years, I'm active in the SSI world, and I'm trying to find business cases on how our customers can implement successfully SSI and actually make money with it. Hi, I'm Andre. I'm a decentralized identity since 2015.
Yes, can you believe it? It's already more than 10 years, so still going strong. I thought we would have this as a quick win because it's so obvious that everyone needs it, and now we have run a couple of marathons and did some heavy lifting in between, but now I think we are finally getting there, so looking forward to the discussion.
Yeah, my name is Stefan Schweitzer. I'm the CEO of Navy Security. We're also a CM provider in Switzerland. We have a strong footprint in the Swiss government, and are basically at the forefront of deploying the EID in Switzerland.
Hello, my name is Torsten Wollerstedt. I have been around in identity for the last 20 years, and now I am leading the German EODI water project with the Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation. So it would appear that we are now moving from thought standardization into practical deployment. The mandate for EUID is very, very clear.
However, the commercial incentive may not be so clear. So maybe we can go from left to right, start off with a thought here. How are we going to address this? What is the driver to make the economic case for adoption?
Well, I'm very much into the financial markets in Switzerland, and what we're seeing there is kind of a grassroots movement where banks are getting together and trying to figure out on how the PIT or EID, as we call it in Switzerland, is going to help them. Of course, there's the onboarding processes, but operationally speaking, there's some specific processes where banks currently struggle because costs are rather high. So it's password resets, it's activation letters for device changes, devices lost. It's the KYC process.
And all these processes could profit very much from having a digital identity that streamlines the user experience on one side and drives down costs on the other side. So they're very much interested in actually figuring out how to deploy that EID because they're hoping they're going to save a ton of money and get more customers onboard if their onboarding is better or retain customers better because their services are better. So this is a very strong drive that is happening in Switzerland, and I think that's applicable to the entire EU as well because they have the same problem.
The market is highly regulated, and this is what actually is going to impact them. Maybe let me start with a little bit of a primer. I think what more counts is that we need a digitally sovereign infrastructure for this trust problem that we have in the world. So maybe it's not so much of a question where the business model is, but more like do we really need it and do we want it for the society and to secure our Western values. So I think the business models will come, saying I have been in this game for more than 10 years.
Obviously, not all the unicorns have come to me yet, but I think we are finally getting there. So I think the business model of operating a wallet is not so much of a discussion. I think the integration into the business process, as Michael also said, is the key thing. Enabling trustworthy data to flow via the full control, and I mean the really full control of the data subject or holder or whatever you want to call it. I think this is the game changer, and everyone who wants to embark on that will find good use cases to apply it. So I'll stop here for that.
Yeah, okay. I think a lot of key use cases have already been mentioned. In Switzerland, basically, the government defined a three-layered approach, so they call it ambition level. So the first ambition level is really to establish the ecosystem within the government, just basically starting with your national identity.
Basically, there were even two votes in Switzerland. So the first voting was about, let's say, classical federation-based architecture, and this was basically refused by the people because they didn't have the trust in that because there was a central actor which could basically capture data. And now with the new approach, it's really SSI-based, decentralized, minimized on data, and full control for the user. So that's ambition level one. Ambition level two is to expand it to the broader public sector.
So, for example, to issue driving licenses, to issue, let's say, an admission from the company register and things like that. And the third level is then, or ambition level three, is then the private sector. And that's then where it really gets interesting. And conceptually, you can think of that like a layered ecosystem, which starts with the foundation of the national idea. And I think this is also a concept which works very well in the whole ecosystem, independent of country borders. And I think thinking in those layers makes really sense to evolve the ecosystem.
From an ecosystem perspective, it's pretty hard to start, scale, and grow such an ecosystem because we have a lot of different parties that are involved. We've got wallet providers, we've got provider of the credentials, we've got users, and we kind of need a stepwise and layered approach to make that happen. So let's start with the wallet. Experience in SSI space has shown that business cases for the wallet are not really around, right? So we have seen adoption of wallets in certain use cases, domains, but not on a broad basis.
So I think the ITAS regulation and the UDI wallet gives us that kind of infrastructure. So we can rely on, there will be at least one wallet. That's point number one. Point number two, we need data in the ecosystem. So with the regulation, we put at least the electronic identity into the wallet, but we need more data. Because without the data, there won't be relying parties, and there will be no use cases, right? So with the PIT, we provide the basis for use cases.
And what is very important, we do not focus on online only, because identification in the online world has a lot of different solutions. And if you want to compete with them, you have an even more harder fight to fight to get adoption, because we start with zero users. And identity, that's all that counts, reach and conversion rate, right? So that's why we, as a go-to-market strategy, pursue a strategy where we address online and proximity use cases from the beginning. So people can load their identity into the wallet and can, for example, prove their identity when they pick up a parcel.
And that, according to our surveys, is a game changer. So we've got the wallet, we've got data, we've got use cases, and then we need to get the users on board. And that's basically the chain. For relying parties, in our experience, the cost saving, better conversion, those are basically my motivations, plus fraud prevention. Because what's happening today in the wider society is people share a picture of stuff, and we start to believe that a picture of a plastic card is a credential. That's so wrong, and it's going in the completely wrong direction.
So from a relying party standpoint, it's cost, fraud, and conversion rate. And issues, this is a hard nut to crack, right? Because finding motivations, incentives for issues, is pretty hard. There are some, for example, issues that themselves consume the data, so they can save cost by simplifying the processes, and perhaps just doing things more smoothly. And for some of them, we will oblige them to issue credentials through the introduction law. That's on its way through the parliament right now.
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I'd like to share an example. I think we have to go ecosystem by ecosystem. And we have the AI2 framework as the guardrails, and as the trusted regulatory framework to do such things. So we have started quite a while ago to implement our own ecosystem together with a client, starting in the construction industry. It's workforce credentials, and it's like a very easy thing.
So you, as someone running construction site, need to prove that everyone who's working there is employed legally. So how do you do that? Do you throw around paper all the time?
Yes, this is what you usually do. And it's dynamic over time, and you have many companies, many different nationalities working together, and you're still liable that everyone who's working there is employed legally, and everything is fine. So we have started this as an ecosystem independently because the customer said, okay, this is like the thing we need. And for the time being, we replicate the paper documents inside this ecosystem because we have no other means.
So the greatest experience would be if we have these documents that prove that everyone's working there legally as a qualified electronic attestation of attribute from the original source. So our key idea is to move to that state at a future time. So for the time being, we have replaced that, but our hope and this of the customer is also that this can be a new business wallet completely relying on the regulatory framework that's out there. So I think the ideas are there. It's just a matter of applying them realistically. And I think this is the game changer. And I'm closing there.
Now we have a different situation. We have the pit, and we have mandatory acceptance of at least some industries. So I think this is a changing thing where we are breaking through the vicious circle of not doing it by at least putting some software regulatory pressure on those who must accept it. So it sounds very much like content is king. Empty wallets are empty wallets at that point. And services, I mean, is key as well.
So I mean, at the end of the day, nobody just wants authentication for its own purposes. I mean, you want to use authentication to access your bank account, to create a bank account, to access the government service. And I think these essential services which are driving adoption, I mean, that's then basically what will bootstrap and help bootstrap the ecosystem. And I think at the beginning, yeah, to put a little bit of pressure on it, also regulatory-wise, is the best way to get it started. So to that point, pressure. The Commission's directive is clear, December.
And by, I think, their own admission, we're seeing less than a quarter or a third readiness. Does the Commission and this mandate have a credibility problem? Or what's the barrier in each of your opinions? Maybe start with Michael. I have a clarifying question. What barrier do you mean? Sorry? I have a clarifying question. What barrier do you mean regarding the deadline? Adoption. Adoption is allowed by the Commission's own verification. So December is the day. So if you could change one thing to force that adoption, to make that speed up, what would it be?
I mean, first of all, the member states are obliged to publish a wallet. So no one's really measuring adoption. So unfortunately, this is not part of the ambition level, right?
For us, it's important. For us, adoption is of utmost importance. That's why we go a slightly different way. So in Germany, we will implement parts of what is regulatory required. We will only implement PITs and EAs in the beginning. But we put much emphasis on building the ecosystem, meaning getting use cases, getting relying parties, and getting EA providers on board. Because from our perspective, just getting the app live is not solving any problem, right? Just downloading the app and playing around with it might be interesting for nerds, but not for the average user.
So as I said, we need the data in the ecosystem that basically makes it compelling for the relying parties, which in the end makes it compelling for the users. That's how we close the loop. And we right now have 300 use cases that are on their way into the sandbox for the German ecosystem, right? And this is in the end what counts. You've got the app, the data, the use cases, and then you will get the users.
Yeah, one national border. Yeah, maybe. I think it's not a credibility issue, as you mentioned in the language. I think it's more a rollout issue. But I think we should think a little bit on a broader scale.
I mean, this is a fundamental new infrastructure we are currently building. It's not just turning a switch. And this will take time. And I think the standards are solid. The ecosystem is there. Standards are still evolving, I know. But let's say they are on a good track. And I think also the approach with this large-scale use case is to really test it out makes sense. And we should not forget we have already building blocks where we can start with. And they are a little bit different from country to country.
I mean, the Nordic region, they have the bank ID, which is already an ecosystem built on a different technology. But this doesn't matter. In Switzerland, we have chosen a very similar approach. So it is a central identity provider called Agoff, operated by the Swiss government, and currently using the FIDO technology with basically our product in its core. But now this is, let's say, the starting point then to connect the EID into it, because they have already 1.6 million users. So in Switzerland, we have a population of roughly 9 million.
And if you count taxpayers, natural taxpayers, it's around 5 to 6 million. So we have already an adoption of more than 25% if you just take the natural taxpayers.
And now, so this community will then, from December 1st, be enabled to use the hopefully by then available EID from day one. And I think we need to find those crystallization points to get it started in combination with good use cases. In Switzerland, for example, it's tax declaration. Every taxpayer has to do that.
And yeah, also the accountants are forcing now with a soft pressure, let's say, the users in that direction. And I think this is the way to get it started. So fascinating. The Swiss ecosystem is moving forward. We've got about three, four minutes here. So we'll give each other a second to finish up. So maybe it's an incentive around free chocolate. Swiss could maybe give out chocolate to everybody. What can we do? I'm not sure whether it's the incentivation to chocolate that will make it. I'll use my wallet. If you give me free chocolate, I'll do anything. I love Swiss chocolate.
Maybe that's one of the ways on how you can drive adoption. But one of the problems that we're still facing to get actually to the point where we can start off is the whole governance thing. I personally think that the governance of ecosystems, and if I talk about ecosystem, I'm talking about finance, healthcare, education, the governance of these things and what their requirements are and how those policies are to be applied. There is some standards going in that direction in the EU. There is very little of that in Switzerland.
But implementing that and actually getting it to work, that's one of the big hurdles we have to overtake if we want different industries, different verticals to be able to use the technology successfully and actually use it in a way that makes sense for them. Because if you're a hotel, then your requirements on security and everything are probably much lower than if you're a bank or if you're a government. I don't really know if Swiss tax is such a good example because it works like a charm.
I heard that handing in the tax declaration was one minute past midnight was the first one who handed in the 2025 tax declaration. I think this is a problem that maybe solved well. But I think what you're rightfully saying is we need this to be practically relevant to people. It needs to be something that is useful and is solving a real problem while at the same time being convenient to use. And I think we have been in this game long together. So I think this is the key challenge. I want to close off with something I started with actually as well. So let's be very exact.
We need something that preserves the digitally sovereign world in this trust problem that we have. So fraud is going through the roof. If we are not having reliable tech and governance, as you said, we'll be the end of the hyperconnected world as we know it. So we better get it right and we better make it so that it's useful and secure and is solving real world problems. So I think we're all in this together here. So let's start finding the unicorns. And I suggest let's collect or gather next year again when we are live because then we have much more data to talk about.
Right now for us the focus is get that thing through the door, get any data accepted in society, right? Getting transaction volume through the roof. This is right now. This is what we need to prove. Then we have the reputation or we can build a reputation in the society so people will trust on it and we will see more businesses integrating with it and so on. That's the next stage. Yeah. So success in one area will drive another. We have got one minute left if you had one more comment. Yeah. I think at the end of the day it's this acceptance which drives it.
It should become natural for everyone. Okay. Yeah. You interact digitally with any kind of organization. Yeah. You pull out the wallet and it should just become natural. And I think then we have done our job if we get to this point.
Gentlemen, we are about out of time now. As you can see, very interesting topic.
Adoption, we need a little bit more time. Rollout, scalability, scene. My takeaway there is it's going to be about content in the wallet and its use case by the relying party. So that is what will drive our adoption. So gentlemen, thank you very much for your very valuable perspectives here and a quick round of applause for the panel. Thank you.
