Identyum participated in the 2nd meeting of the European Fintech Payments Dialogue, organised by European Central Bank, as one of the ten fintech companies invited, along with payment experts of the European System of Central Banks.
The meeting was held on 22 February 2022, focusing on the theme of e-identity in relation to payments and dealing with innovation trends of relevance for fintech companies. As new players and disruptive technologies increasingly challenge the traditional payments business, fintech companies have triggered the latest wave of innovation, accelerating the evolution of payment systems. In response to this, the European Central Bank is creating the Eurosystem’s retail payment strategy, which will focus on the role of European fintech companies.
e-Identity in relation to payments
Participants were invited to exchange on the theme of e-Identity in relation to payments in the following topics: the opportunities and challenges for the use of eID’s in the private sector, specifically in the payments industry; essential things to achieve pan-European useability and interoperability of eID eSignature solutions; necessary things to ensure that the foreseen digital identity wallets will be successfully taken up in the payments industry and expectations of the ECB/Eurosystem regarding the e-Identity in relation to payments.
Identity wallets in payments industry
Our CEO Robert Ilijas stated that we believe that payment transaction authorisation is the critical use-case for the uptake of identity wallets in the payments industry (and the QEC being a part of wallet) which requires the use of QES for signing every payment transaction. The most important aspect of this use-case is the end user UX. When using identity wallet’s authentication to authorise a payment transaction, the “total” payment UX (from end user’s perspective) should not be any more complex than UX when using a virtualised card in the Google/Apple payment wallet (which essentially boils down to a) unlock phone and b) NFC tap). This in turn means that major smartphone OS providers (Google/Apple) should ensure a frictionless model for background NFC reading/writing for digital identity wallets.
At the end of the Dialogue the participants were invited to exchange the views on emerging innovation trends affecting the provision of e-Identity related services, and how European fintechs can effectively adapt to and compete with global and non-European newcomers.