Nexi Group - Pioneering Remote Identification for a Secure Future

Pioneering Remote Identification for a Secure Future

Pioneering Remote Identification for a Secure Future

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing at Nets eID Solutions, offered by Nets DanID which is part of Europe’s largest pay tech company Nexi Group, discusses transforming the security industry with their leading-edge identity and payment solutions.

merging from a consolidation of Nexi, Nets and Sia, the Nexi Group is one of the biggest PayTech players in Europe.

Nets DanID (Nets) strives to provide the simplest, fastest and safest eID solutions with proximity, scale and capabilities. The company has developed one of Europe’s first eIDAS-compliant national eID schemes in Denmark, called “MitID,” managing about 9 million digital identities and reaching a market adoption of 99%, bridging the public and private sectors with 67 banks and more than

2,000 providers together on one platform.

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing at Nets eID Solutions joins us to explore the company’s innovative approach to identity solutions and the technology behind its services.

“Nets comprises 3 main business units: payment card issuing processing, multi-channel merchant payment and acquiring services, and digital banking networking services. We are a strategic combination of three European leaders shaping the

future of digitalisation and e-security, operating in 25 countries with 9,000 employees,” begins Roland. “We originate from the Nordics, a region made up of some of the most advanced digital societies in the world, making us frontrunners within the electronic identification (eID) and digital payment solutions industries.

“Nets services a major ecosystem of over 160 million cardholders, over 2.5 million merchants across all European countries and aims to embed secure digital identity functions right into its payment and cardholder processing services to dramatically increase security, reduce fraud and provide innovative new value-adding services.

“In Denmark, Nets eID – offered by Nets DanID which is part of Nexi Group –developed, launched and operates the country’s first eID solution in collaboration between the nation’s banks and public administration. It is free of charge for Danish citizens and it represents the secure access to all digital services in Denmark, including both the private and public sectors.

“Our solution offers multi-modal and multi-country identity verification and authentication services, eID and credential management and electronic signing service, which are compliant with EU eIDAS and PSD2 regulation and country-specific AML requirements. Users can use mobile apps or various hard-tokens to authenticate and protect their privacy and identity.

“My role at Nets, is to lead the strategic direction for eID solutions, focusing on both the public and private sector, particularly in banking and financial

services. My responsibilities include identifying new opportunities and strategic alliances. I’m also in charge of guiding the sales and marketing team to enhance brand awareness and align marketing strategy with sales and business objectives –especially in positioning Nets in the EU and also looking at expanding into the global market. Within this, my role involves spearheading market entry strategy and understanding diverse local regulations so we can work with international strategic alliances to seek to effectively position and adapt our eID solutions in various markets.”

“My key objective is to seamlessly embed digital identity services into all business critical and personal digital transaction services, whether this is in public services or a broad range of private services, like financial and banking, insurance, health, education, R&D, cloud and digital content, just to name some categories. Embracing digital identity services within the digital society and ecosystem will deliver the highest level of trust, security and privacy.

Elaborating on Net’s go-to-market strategy for digital identity solutions, Roland emphasises the importance of ensuring that their industry expertise is accessible, flexible, stateof-the-art, secure and relevant.

“Nets digital identity solution, including our state-of-the-art eID platform, offers comprehensive services such as multi-modal/multicountry identity verification, multimethod authentication and digital signing,” says Roland. “Based on over

20 years of experience in developing and operating digital identity solutions in the Nordics, we have packaged our knowledge into modules that can be easily adopted by potential customers throughout Europe and beyond.

“Our strategy is to offer a whitelabel eID solution for banks and public sector organisations, focusing on seamless integration and user experience. Our eID solution is already successfully deployed in Denmark, and it is designed for scalability and internationalisation.

“We have built our eID solution in a very modular way. The whole solution which is based on open source software has been built with an “APIfirst” mindset in order to ease any implementations.

“Drawing on our two-decade expertise in digital identity, we aim to bolster the digital transformation efforts of

member states and sectors by offering our well-established eID solutions. We're dedicated to delivering secure, compliant and user-centric services that meet the evolving needs of public and private entities across Europe.

“Our strategy for entering the market targets both the public and private sectors, with a special focus on the banking industry due to its significant size and potential for customer acquisition. Additionally, our solutions are designed to assist in complying with current and forthcoming regulations, such as PSD2, eIDAS 2.0 and the anticipated PSD3. This approach not only capitalises on our expertise in digital identity but also aligns with the evolving regulatory landscape, ensuring our services remain indispensable for meeting the complex requirements of these directives.

“In summary, we have built the newest generation of eID solutions, which

is flexible, modular and covers all aspects of what is expected of such solutions. We support strong customer authentication (SCA), secure remote identity verification, various authentication methods for digital inclusion, qualified and enhanced electronic signatures. We meet strict compliance and regulatory needs, such as GDPR for data protection, eIDAS for electronic transactions within the EU, and PSD2 for secure payment services. Additionally, our solutions are designed to support the three levels of assurance – low, substantial, and high – as defined by eIDAS, thereby catering to the diverse needs of our clients across both the public and private sectors.

“The platform enables digital identity creation and verification of customers and end users, providing secure logins and single sign-on to (your own or 3rd party) digital services. It is a solid foundation for delivering first-class customer experience and enhancing operational efficiency.

“Our digital identity solutions also make transactions faster, easier and more secure for banks, public organisations and clients in other industries too.”

To provide the security and speed required for digital payment and identity solutions, Nets wields the latest technology and innovations related to bio identity and biometric features.

“We are pioneering innovation in bio identity and biometrics,” says Roland. “Our platform has a built-in ID Reader, which offers fast and secure digital

identity verification, fully digitalising the process and eliminating the need for physical meetings or video technology.

“The Nets ID Reader can analyse and verify more than 200 different international ID documents, facilitating global onboarding and identity verification – even if the country lacks an existing eID solution. We are revolutionising remote identification, moving beyond traditional optical character recognition and individual identification technologies, whilst ensuring the highest level of security – including eIDAS and ISO/IEC 30107 standards.

“The Nets ID Reader incorporates a configurable Face Match Level (FML) to adjust the level of assurance for identity verification processes, including managing the False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The system allows setting a specific FAR threshold, with the document mentioning

configurations like FML 6, which corresponds to a 1:100,000 FAR with less than 1% False Rejection Rate (FRR), meeting the eIDAS High Level of Assurance criteria. The maximum configuration level mentioned is FML 8, equating to a 1:1,000,000 FAR with less than 1% FRR.

“Our approach not only offers superior convenience for end users but also offers robust protection from fraud. We also provide a software development kit for building native solutions and integrating them into existing apps. One of our key USPs is interoperability, since our solution can sit alongside and enhance existing solutions.”

Having positioned itself at the forefront of the eID market, Nets embraces the responsibility and opportunity of being a trailblazing digital identity and payments business, according to Roland.

“Our approach not only offers superior convenience for end users but also offers robust protection from fraud”

Roland Eichenauer, VP of BD, Sales & Marketing, Digital Identity & eID Solutions

“At Nets, we are actively involved in the EU Digital Identity Wallet Pilot as one of the Large Scale Pilots, positioning ourselves as a key player in this new ecosystem,” says Roland. “We are also actively participating in influential consortiums – the EUDI Wallet Consortium (EWC) and the NOBID Consortium – demonstrating our capabilities and commitment to shaping the future of digital identity in Europe.

“We are leveraging our participation in this landscape, partly to enhance our offering, but also to evolve and adapt to the digital identity landscape. Within this, we are focusing on ensuring that our solutions meet the highest standards of assurance required by the EU, making us a highly credible and influential provider of digital identity solutions.

“A key focus for us has been aligning with eIDAS 2.0 standards and providing

EU citizens with a secure digital identity for cross-border use.

“Since we are providing the critical national eID infrastructure for the Danish government, we are involved in the development of PIDs (personal identification datasets) issuance for the coming EU Wallet.”

Looking ahead to the future, Roland explains that new and evolving legislation, regulations and policies are a vehicle for Nets to expand into more countries, reach new markets and continue to develop its highly innovative solutions.

“If we consider eIDAS 1.0 alongside the resilience recovery funds from the EU to build national eID solutions, we can still see that there are several member states who do not have a notified eID solution in place,” explains Roland. “Member States can request financing for setting up or improving the necessary infrastructure from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), indicating that the funds support both eIDAS 1.0 and the advancement to eIDAS 2.0. Expansion into these countries is one of our ambitions. We believe that with the right local partner, we could really be a contributor to their digital transformation journey. But as more and more member states deploy the EU Digital Identity Wallet, we need to adapt or improve the existing eID solutions concurrently. In the digital identity space, there are still many physical ID readers or other technologies with low levels of assurance which need to be addressed. Instead, everybody needs to have a mobile version with the highest level of assurance.

“As new identity security regulations come into play and banks or financial institutions release new products to market, the consistent underlying prerequisite is a strong digital identity and verification system. At Nets, we embrace these demands from the market and strive to make the transactions as fast, easy and secure as possible for our users.”

Drawing our conversation to a close, Roland emphasises that digital identity has been overlooked or underprioritised by many industries and this situation needs to change – for the benefit of end users but also financial institutions, public bodies and private sector businesses as well.

“Digital identity is a critical driver for digital transformation, as evidenced by the experiences of Nordic countries, which are often at the forefront of digital innovation,” says Roland. “The implementation of digital identity systems in these countries has

demonstrated significant benefits in terms of efficiency, security and user convenience.

“In a digital economy, identity verification is a fundamental process that impacts a broad range of sectors, from banking and healthcare to public services. Having a secure and reliable digital identity framework like eIDAS 2.0 is crucial for the following reasons:

• It's not only about improving user experience but also about the broader implications for security, governance and economic development. For businesses and financial institutions, digital identity systems can reduce the risk of identity theft and streamline customer onboarding. For public bodies, they can enhance the delivery of services and improve governance.

• The transition to a digital-first approach, as seen in the Nordics, is a testament to the power of digital

identity in driving transformation. By adopting similar frameworks, other EU member states can capitalise on these benefits, making services more seamless and secure for all stakeholders involved. The support of initiatives like the EU's Recovery and Resilience Facility for such digital transformations indicates a recognition of these benefits at the highest levels of governance.

“Digital identity has not been a key focus for a lot of industries,” insists Roland. “Many companies write off digital identity because they only consider it in the context of the use case for making money. Failure to do so can result in losing out financially due to fraud cases, phishing attempts or poor user experience during client onboarding processes, for instance. Digital identity, in some ways, has evolved into a currency in its own right due to its economic implications.

“By building a user-centric, secure and unified digital identity, harmonising the public and private sectors, our model could be a societal game changer. Digital identity is essential for faster, secure transactions and diverse payment scenarios. It streamlines citizen-government interactions, reducing fraud and paperwork. In banking, it ensures compliance, aids in fraud prevention, and enhances personalised financial services. Overall, digital identity drives innovation and efficiency in both sectors.”

To learn more, visit www.nets.eu.

Turn over for 'ADDED VALUE' with Roland.

Connect with Roland

Recommended resources

Roland spends much of his time commuting listening to audiobooks and podcasts. He highly recommends the Identity Unlocked podcast hosted by Vittorio Bertocci as a particularly insightful resource for anyone interested in the digital identity industry. Roland also recommends watching David Birch’s TED Talk on digital identity.

“These resources help deepen the audience understanding of the complexity and potential of digital identities,” says Roland. “The discussions are particularly relevant, given the rapid digital transformation we are experiencing as a society.”

Professional network

Roland is part of several expert groups which he finds professionally rewarding and insightful. In particular, Roland highlights being part of the digital identity expert group coordinated by the Mobey Forum.

“The Mobey Forum is a global nonprofit industry association, empowering banks and other financial institutions to shape the future of digital financial services,” says Roland.

Event schedule

Nets actively seeks opportunities to engage with industry representatives and share its expertise at global events, explains Roland.

If you’d like to connect with Nets, they will be attending the events below in the coming months of 2024.