Introduction
Digital wallets are at the heart of the European Union’s digital transformation, aiming to provide citizens and organizations with a secure, interoperable, and versatile tool for managing digital identities, personal attributes, and, in the future, payments. With the eIDAS 2.0 regulation, Europe is preparing to launch the European Digital Wallet (EUDI Wallet), a project designed to standardize and harmonize these tools across all member states, offering a solution that is both local and transnational.
The complexity of this initiative lies in the need to integrate various technologies, identification schemes, and national standards while ensuring interoperability at the European level. Furthermore, the success of the wallet will depend on the ability to create a sustainable ecosystem where public and private actors collaborate to develop robust and innovative business models, encouraging broad participation.
The eIDAS Reference Architecture Framework
The technical foundation of the European Digital Wallet is the Reference Architecture Framework (ARF), which defines the essential modules to ensure interoperability, security, and compliance at a European level. Key components of the framework include identity and attribute management and the trust model, which establishes the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders involved, such as attribute issuers, wallet providers, and relying parties. This trust model is crucial to ensuring secure and reliable interactions, based on strict standards.
One aspect not yet included within the ARF but potentially added in the future is the integration of digital payments, such as the Digital Euro—a digital form of central bank money issued by the European Central Bank for retail payments. While this feature presents an interesting perspective, the current focus remains on identity and attributes, aiming to consolidate the system’s foundations.
Certifications and the role of ENISA
Wallet certifications play a crucial role in ensuring security and compliance. Since wallets must integrate both European standards and local digital identity schemes—such as SPID and CIEid in Italy—each member state will be responsible for defining its national certification schemes. However, to ensure a harmonized approach, ENISA (the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity) has established an expert group tasked with providing common guidelines, promoting convergence to avoid fragmentation, and ensuring interoperability across different systems.
Business models and ecosystem sustainability
A key element for the success of the European Digital Wallet is the creation of sustainable business models. While the market will develop these models, it is essential that the system architecture provides the necessary conditions for the market to emerge and thrive. The architecture must therefore include enabling elements such as scalable infrastructures and standardized mechanisms for attribute management and verification.
Among the most promising models, attribute monetization stands out, with two main approaches:
- Pay-per-use: Relying parties pay attribute issuers for each verification performed through the wallet.
- Pay-for-issuance: Users bear the cost of obtaining a certified attribute, similar to how official documents are issued today.
These models can generate value for all stakeholders, fostering an economically self-sustaining ecosystem and driving the development of new functionalities.
Preparing to manage complexity
A crucial aspect of wallet implementation is managing operational complexity, made even more challenging by the fact that its use will be voluntary. This means the wallet will need to coexist with existing identification schemes, such as SPID, CIEid, or other solutions, creating diverse and complex onboarding flows. For example, one citizen might use the wallet to certify their residential address with a linked attribute, while another might manually upload a utility bill for verification after completing identification through a different method.
This coexistence will require flexible workflows and scalable infrastructures capable of adapting to different identification methods and managing the long-term coexistence of multiple systems. Successfully navigating this complexity will be essential to ensuring a seamless user experience during onboarding while leveraging the integration opportunities that the wallet provides.
Opportunities for the EUDI wallet ecosystem
The European Digital Wallet is not just a tool for managing digital identity but also a means of certifying personal attributes and, potentially, handling digital payments. This versatility creates a range of opportunities for all stakeholders. For citizens, the wallet simplifies access to public and private services, while for relying parties and attribute issuers, it offers a more efficient way to manage verifications and certifications.
In the medium term, integration with the Digital Euro could transform the wallet into an essential tool for everyday transactions, further expanding its potential. This could trigger a virtuous growth cycle, with a simultaneous increase in users, wallet providers, relying parties, and attribute issuers, fostering the development of new services and applications.
The timeline and Italy’s IT Wallet launch
The European roadmap mandates that all member states provide citizens with a compliant wallet by December 2026. The first implementing acts were approved in November 2024, but Italy will move ahead of schedule with the launch of the IT Wallet. It is likely that an initial version (the public IT Wallet) with a remote onboarding flow will be available in the second half of 2025, following the approval of technical guidelines by AgID. These guidelines—developed in consultation with the Data Protection Authority, ACN, and the Standing Conference for relations between the State, the regions, and autonomous provinces—will apply to both public and accredited private wallets. This will allow for testing technical solutions and operational flows, positioning Italy among the leading countries in the project’s implementation.
Businesses and organizations should start preparing now, given the tight deadlines for adopting technical standards and developing the necessary infrastructures. Those who act promptly will gain a competitive advantage, positioning themselves to capitalize on the opportunities offered by the new ecosystem.
Conclusion
The European Digital Wallet presents a unique opportunity to build a secure, interoperable, and inclusive digital ecosystem. The project’s success will depend on harmonizing standards and national schemes, creating sustainable business models, and managing technical and operational complexity. With a clear roadmap and an early rollout in Italy, the future of the digital wallet is already taking shape—now is the time to act and turn this vision into reality.