How Wallet Will Change Our Business Processes: Leveraging Digital Wallets To Optimise Efficiency And Security [Intermediate]

Well, first of all, thank you for joining. Another topic about identity wallets and this time is about the processes around identity wallets and whether they will or may not be impacted. So let's talk about that. A couple of words about myself.

Yeah, I'm presenting for the first time at the EIC, but not the first time here. I work at PwC.

At PwC, we have a big team of identity and access management specialists. Now we're about 1,600 around the world. I'm more than 15 years in that field. My personal passion is customer identity. I'm also the customer identity lead at PwC. I'm located in the Netherlands, but I deliver projects around Europe. So the wallets. I wanted to start with this slide. It's about what wallets are and why we talk about them. But today and yesterday, I've been already on so many presentations about wallets that I think even those who have not heard anything about that, they probably know a lot.

So I'll just skip this one and talk about that one. Probably most of you also have seen this picture. It's taken from a GitHub architecture and reference framework. It has been changed. This one in particular, there are several changes that were made one month ago. I know that a new version of architecture and reference framework was published actually five days ago. So it keeps updating and many things are being changed.

For us, for today, the most interesting part is those three. And why? Because they are those that are going to change our end-user experience. All other parties are basically helping on the background to adopt that. But those three, well, there are more squares, but I consider authentic source and provider as kind of one, are those that are interesting for us and those that you probably as an organization may consider playing a role.

And when we talk about, when we deep dive into all the articles, also those that European Union are writing about, they all focus on such use cases like digitalizing driving license, digitalizing your diplomas, using wallets for traveling, for example, with digital visa. And it's all about the customer, about the end-user. And the question is, is it? Is it only the customers that will be affected or maybe there are more than this? And if you look into organization, we have a couple of different types of identities.

One of them is, of course, customer, but we also can talk about employees and how wallets can impact on boarding or authentication of employees, but also third parties. And I know that especially for big organizations, managing their third parties, their partners, brokers, name it, those who need to have digital access to the assets of the organization, that can be a nightmare. And that's where wallets can also help.

Well, let's start with customer. No, sorry, one more slide. So what is similar between all of these digital identities? And this has a key identity and access management process, which is onboarding, authentication, self-management, recovery, and so on. You may argue with me that they are very different, and I will agree with you. Onboarding customer and onboarding employees is probably a little bit different.

However, in the essence, when you talk about identity, you need to onboard it, you need to authenticate it, and give access to the right assets. And in case a person lost their password or whatever, help them to recover. So in this sense, well, we can talk about these processes. Talking about the customer first.

Well, here I think it's pretty obvious. So identity wallets will offer you another authentication and identity-proving mean. Nothing more, nothing less. It's just another one. It will actually help you to be compliant with other legislations that are upcoming. For example, Accessibility Act, BSD3, they all require to offer more than one authentication mean so that the customers can choose according to their preferences.

For you, if we talk about this authentication mean, it means that you have to have a system where you can plug it in. In addition to that, you have to be able to plug in at least 27 wallets, because every member state will develop their own wallet, and you will need, especially if you are under, especially if your organization is actually required to adopt wallets, like for example, banking. You have to be able to accept all of these wallets. And on top of that, any private wallets that appear on the market.

What can be interesting for any organization, whether it is mandatory or not for organizations to get wallets, is actually recovery process. And a very good example is about companies that offer services to the customers where customers don't need to log in that often. Take insurance.

Well, you probably log into an insurance company when you have an insurance incident, hopefully never. To me, this kind of companies, well, I never use the login process. I always start with the recovery process. This is the primary one. I never remember the password. So in this case, the identity wallets can actually help this kind of organizations. Another example is actually a very good one. And with my current, one of the very big clients, we are going through this struggle is email and phone verification.

Especially when you retail, regardless, whoever you are, who offer digital services to your clients, you want to be sure that email and phone of the customer is the right one. Why? Because you need to be able to contact the customer, but also you're often using this information during recovery process.

Normally, it takes quite some efforts for customer. Yes, so from technical implementations, there is no problem. So you just send a TP, customer confirms. But from the customer experience point of view, well, there are at least four additional steps that you don't want to. With identity wallets, these kinds of processes will be changed because, well, you can rely on that information and you can be sure that this is already validated. Talking about other type of identities, which are also very interesting.

We are currently speaking with some of our big clients about implementing wallet, their own wallet within their organization to onboard their employees. So to make it as a part of onboarding process. Why it can be interesting?

Well, now, if you think about normal, usual onboarding of employee, I'm not sure how many of you recently changed a job, but normally it's HR looking on their passport, looking at you, kind of okay, keeps all the copies because it is required. And not even that, probably you even send all that information via email, not encrypted. So there are so many threats already we see on the market when this kind of process is being abused. So with identity wallets, you can change it. You can just say that, okay, we're just on board, you need to authenticate yourself with wallets.

However, you also need to make sure that now the way you keep information about your employees is different. You don't have this proof anymore. You don't have a hard copy of the passport. So what are you going to do? You have to actually trust the wallet. You have to be able to have another way to verify that this information is still valid. For the third parties, employees, it's also very interesting because you as an organization do not have any impact on the way how your partners govern their identities, but you still have to give them access.

So creating your own wallet that would become part of the onboarding process for your third parties, that actually can make the trick. And also, we know that, for example, in big organizations, some of their partners, actually much less mature in their GA processes, and that's where a wallet can actually help them to mature as well.

So multiple ways how you can consider using wallets that will be by the end of hopefully 2026, I mean national wallets, but also consider yourself as a part of that ecosystem, not as just a relying party, but also as, let's say, a wallet provider or even an authentic source. Because what I didn't mention here is that we also have organizations, like let's say a medical organization, where you're allowed to perform certain tasks only if you have certificates. Managing these certificates is pretty difficult.

So wallets can be another one, and you, as an organization, can be an authentic source of that certificate. It can be another way how you can manage it. Deep in dive. As mentioned, most of the processes of IAM processes will be impacted. From onboarding, how you manage different sources of information, how you manage wallet level of assurance, because you also have to accept wallets that basically correspond to your policies and your assurance level. How do you manage risks?

Because indeed, you are going to plug in 27, or well, there are different ways, but in the worst case scenario, you're going to plug in 27 new onboarding and authentication means. So how are you going to detect whether there is any abuse of that, and how you're going to collaborate with wallet providers in case you detect any fraud threats? And of course, digital experience will change dramatically, because you do need to create completely new user journeys in this case. My last slide. It's basically more a question. Is it a call for action or not yet? Why not yet?

Because, well, I just mentioned the latest architecture and reference framework was issued just five days ago, and that's not the last one. So it still will be changing. And the questions that I get from the clients I'm speaking to every time is like, but what are we supposed to do?

I mean, it's coming. It's going to be in one year, but we have no idea what we have to do. Should we start already implementing something? Should not? What to do? My reply to that is, well, start with no regret actions. So when we talk about authentication, it means that you have to have a customer identity where you can plug it in. So assess your customer identity systems. Assess whether you actually can accommodate that.

Because for example, if you have 100 applications and each of application implemented their authentication and onboarding process themselves, I can guarantee you that it will be quite difficult for you to implement all the 27 wallets across 100 applications. So maybe you want to centralize it, at least some of the same capabilities.

Yes, same if you decide to use wallets for your onboarding process. Well, make sure that you have proper GA in place that would allow you to do so. So these kinds of steps that you can already take now, you can assess, well, first of all, what you have, second, what you want and what you need to adjust. And that will be no regret in any way. Because even eventually, if you decide, like, okay, I don't want to become a wallet provider.

Well, but you have a great GA system. So that's a no regret action. And of course, look outside of Europe. We have a couple of cases, also very nice presentation, thanks, just right before me about what's happening in Japanese market. Also in the US market, our partners implement quite an interesting use cases also with wallets. So look outside of Europe, learn from them so that you can be better prepared, let's say, in one year when it's more or less more clear.

And probably topic for the next year to discuss, okay, how we also can leverage artificial intelligence to optimize your processes even better with wallets, with onboarding, and so on. That's my part. I forgot to say one last thing. As PwC team, we also prefer to show rather than talk. So we developed a demo together with our partners to show how that would look like to onboard and authenticate with and without wallets, and how that would look like when you have multiple wallets.

So how can you integrate it and probably also aggregate multiple wallets with one solution so that you don't need to have multiple integrations. If you are interested, you can find PwC Bullseye, I can show it to you. Now that's it. Are there any questions? We have time for questions. Yes. Yes. Thanks for the overview. You are specifically referring to the CM, to the consumer, to the customer. Do you also see an impact to the B2E, B2B use cases?

B2B, I consider as part of third-party providers, yes. Well, it's very similar use cases, B2B and when we talk about third parties. And wallets there can play a big role indeed also for onboarding, also for authenticating.

Yes, absolutely. Any other questions? If there are no more questions, thank you very much, Anna, again.