It does not have to be an uphill struggle..

It does not have to be an uphill struggle

There’s a lot of scepticism around the claim that data flows – between organisation and citizen wallets – will make life and business dramatically easier.

People worry that user experience will be poor, that regulation – especially in EU - will complicate things further, and that older citizens will simply be left behind.

A big reason for this scepticism is that we haven’t campaigned clearly enough around one simple truth: wallets are general-purpose tools - to get all sorts of data.

You learn once – and use everywhere. Economy of repetition. 
You can request any credential to your wallet and share it safely with any service provider of your choice. Always in the same way.

That’s exactly what happened in the Nordics with Bank ID-services where people could use the familiar and trusted way to sign in to all sorts of services. A big economy of repetition and reue. Needless to say that and the entire economy benefited.

It’s now time for the EU, Member States and in many other countries on the same wallet path to run “make life easier and more secure” campaigns. 

Igniting confidence among digitally-stressed citizens will create pressure on both:

• Public sector bodies sitting on hundreds of valuable credentials that will be verifiable, and
• Enterprises eager to improve customer, supplier, and employee services. And increase productivity as the German estimate - 84,7 billion net cost savings per year in large and medium enterprises demonstrates.

And let’s be clear: general-purpose wallets will help the elderly most of all.
They are increasingly dependent on digital services, yet today every experience is different – and often confusing.
With wallets, everything becomes familiar, predictable, and safe.

Even better – they will be able to delegate securely to AI-agents, asking them to find optimal solutions or handle routine tasks on their behalf.

That’s what inclusion really looks like: not lowering the bar, but raising the floor for everyone.