Trusted online service for identity assurance

Project Information

IDAaaS

Grant agreement ID: 736454

DOI

10.3030/736454

Project closed

EC signature date 15 September 2016

Start date 1 October 2016

End date 31 March 2017

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

SIGNICAT AS
Norway

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IDAaaS (Trusted online service for identity assurance)

Reporting period: 2016-10-01 to 2017-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Simplifying digital onboarding for financial institutions
According to a recent research we performed, more than 40% of consumers abandon onboarding to financial institutions due to either the time it takes, the amount of information they have to provide, or that they have to physically go to a bank branch.
For the financial institutions, this is a problem, as they lose a lot of potential customers. Also, the existing processes are time-consuming, and costly for the banks.
For the consumers, this means that the choices are limited, especially, as physically presence is required, and this excludes a lot of consumers from a lot of banks.
This also limits competition, and makes it hard for new financial institutions entering the market.

Understanding the requirements
Signicat wanted to understand the requirements for onboarding financial customers, considering the AMLD (Anti Money Laundering Directive), as well as getting a better understanding the role of electronic ID providers in the onboarding process.

Our solution
The IDAaaS solution by Signicat is based on using a combination of different methods for doing digital onboarding of new customers, targeted towards financial requirements, but can be used by any organization.
By collecting information about the user from different sources, it is possible to get the required level of assurance for onboarding. The methods can be anything from using consumer identities (for example Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and others), scanning of identity papers (passports, ID documents, drivers licenses), and using public electronic identities (for example BankID in Norway and Sweden, NemID in Denmark, and iDIN and DigiD in the Netherlands).

Objective
The objective of the project was to evaluate if the IDAaaS would be usable in seven selected countries, both from a technical but also from a legal perspective. The selected countries are: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In each of the selected countries, Signicat has done an evaluation of the existing eID providers, to get a better understanding of which information is provided. In addition, the legal requirements in each country, with respect to the AMLD requirements has been done. The result of this is that the eID method by itself is not sufficient for onboarding, even though the process for obtaining this eID has had strong measures. A combination of the eID and other means may in some countries be sufficient. Other countries will require a face-to-face meeting, but this may be done using a two-way video conference, thus simplifying and reducing cost, both for the bank and the consumer.
We have also been doing technical evaluation of other means of identity assurance, such as recognizing various ID papers, as this in many cases will be important in digital onboarding. Also, taking a self-portrait is useful, and we have added liveness test to this process, to ensure that there is a real user at the other end, and not a photograph.
Finally, we have been attending a number of conferences to present IDAaaS with the purpose of getting feedback, and getting into discussions with the industry and analysts.

Conclusion
The conclusion is that the IDAaaS will play an important part in onboarding of financial customers, and we plan to improve our platform, as well as entering new markets with the solution. The goal is to find a large financial provider, who knows the market, and can provide the services, and work together to make an optimized onboarding solution for each market. This work has already started in the Netherlands. Other countries are to follow.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

While banks require consumers to visit bank branches to sign up as a customer, consumers expect that everything can be done digitally. This is true for most digital services today, but not including banks and other financial institutions.
By providing a digital-only solution, this will make it simpler for consumers to sign up to new financial services. With the arrival of PSD2 (Payment Service Directive 2 – EU Directive 2015/2366), which comes into effect 2018-01, it is expected that a lot of new players will enter the market, and the need for smooth onboarding is a requirement for these to succeed.
With the arrival of eIDAS (EU regulation 2014/910), there will be more focus on assurance levels, as eIDAS defines Low, Substantial and High. It is up to the organization to decide which level is required for a customer, based on a combination of risk and regulation. It is possible to do an initial onboarding using assurance level low, and then step this up to a higher assurance level at a later stage, when the risk increases, or regulations demand it.
The core of the IDAaaS is that the bank (or any other organization) can onboard new customers with the required assurance levels. The goal is to provide the eIDAS levels of assurance in each of the European countries, to make it simpler and harmonized. Initially, there will be a need to select which methods are required in each case.

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