Digital Identity in Europe Depends on More Than Wallets
For years, digital identity was mostly about policies, regulations, and standards.
Now it’s becoming tangible.
Across Europe, governments are preparing for citizens to carry and use digital credentials in everyday life. The main initiative is the European Commission’s EUDI Wallet, designed to let people store digital versions of their IDs, diplomas, and licenses on their phones and present them whenever needed.
Beyond the wallet itself
But a wallet on its own doesn’t make digital identity work. The credentials inside only matter if organizations accept them. If only a few services are willing or able to verify credentials, the wallet ends up being just a secure container.
This gap is the origin of many barriers to the adoption of verifiable credentials. Organizations might hesitate to start broadly using VCs due to unclear incentives, risk, or because they aren’t even aware of their existence. Even if the tech is solid, uptake stalls when many services don’t recognize the credential. The real challenge is creating trust: rules, safeguards, and assurances that help banks, employers, and public agencies feel confident in relying on what’s inside the wallet.
Trust infrastructure and acceptance networks
Trust infrastructure refers to the governance, standards, and certification mechanisms that make adoption possible. Another frequently used term is acceptance network, which refers to the issuers and verifiers that put rules into practice. Acceptance networks make it possible for verifiers to rely on digital credentials without taking on unnecessary risk.
In practice, this involves:
- defining who is authorized to issue credentials,
- publishing directories of trusted issuers,
- certifying wallets and issuers, and
- agreeing on common technical standards so credentials work across borders.
Without this layer, organizations would not feel certain about using digital credentials in their services.
Examples of acceptance networks
The idea of an acceptance network isn’t new. Credit cards are one of the clearest examples. A piece of plastic on its own has no value. What makes it work is the system behind it: banks that issue the cards, payment processors that move the money, and merchants that agree to accept them. All of this is tied together by shared rules, liability arrangements, and technical standards. This network, not the card itself, is what makes a Visa or Mastercard usable anywhere in the world.
The same principle applies to digital identity in the Nordics. Denmark’s MitID, Sweden’s BankID, and Norway’s BankID are now essential for banking, government services, and everyday online transactions. They’re successful because banks, service providers, and public authorities agreed on shared frameworks that everyone could trust. Once that trust was established, usage spread rapidly across sectors.
The EUDI Wallet pilots are taking a similar approach. They are not just testing wallet apps but also experimenting with governance models, trust registries, and certification processes. All of these are needed to turn national projects into a European-scale acceptance network.
Looking ahead
The EUDI Wallet program is ambitious, and rightly so. But its success will not be measured by the wallets themselves. Instead, it will be measured by how strong and reliable the underlying infrastructure is and by how willing organizations are to take part in the acceptance network.
The wallet may be the symbol of digital identity, but real adoption depends on the agreements and frameworks that give all parties the confidence to trust it.
