Leading the Digital Change – eID and eSignatures in Scandinavia

The Nordic countries have led the world in digital adoption and innovation for some time now. They often top most digital competitiveness rankings such as the 2017 Digital Evolution Index.

The index places Nordic countries in a leading position in terms of user trustworthiness of the digital environment, quality of user experience, and consumer behaviors in the digital space. This digital edge feeds into other sectors of the economy, and as a result, the Nordic countries lead in areas like fintech, online service delivery and digital commerce.

Leading by Enabling

Providing businesses and users with the tools to effectively and securely transact in a digital environment is a crucial requirement for the creation of a truly digital economy. User identification and authentication are one of the first and perhaps one of the more important steps in digital service delivery. Financial services become even more critical with the need to ensure compliance with CDD (Customer Due Diligence) and KYC (Know Your Customer) norms and build robust barriers against money laundering and other financial crimes.

The Nordic countries present an ideal case study for the type of Digital Single Market that the European Union would like to establish across all its Member States. That is the main objective behind various EU initiatives like the eIDAS regulation and its supporting guidelines, which are critical enablers for the creation of such a pan-European Digital Single Market.

Letting the numbers do the talking

The biggest success, perhaps in the Nordic countries, has been the high adoption rates. The following table illustrates how widely the national eID and eSignature schemes are used in Denmark, Sweden and Norway:

Country (eID Scheme)	Total users / Total population	Service usage per month
Denmark (NemID)	4.9 M / 5.7 M i.e. the entire adult population	59 M - an average of 12 times per user per month
Sweden (BankID)	6.7 M / 10 M i.e. 67% of total population	275 M - an average of 40 times per user per month
Norway (BankID)	3.7 M / 5.3 M i.e. 70% of total population	42 M - an average of 11 times per user per month

These figures are indicative of the trust that the consumers have placed in these schemes as well as the ability of these schemes to successfully deliver what is required of them. In a matter of years, these electronic IDs have become pivotal in the delivery of all services – both through the private sector and governmental agencies. eIDAS aims to replicate this success and even improve upon it by enabling the cross-border use of electronic identification documents.

In Part 2 of our series on the success of electronic IDs and digital signatures in Nordic countries, we will look at them in somewhat greater detail and analyze what has made them so successful with such impressive adoption rates. Such an analysis will help us distill the key ingredients to such schemes' success and provide a glimpse into the future of larger initiatives such as eIDAS.

References and Further Reading

Leading the Digital Change – eID and eSignatures in Scandinavia, Part 1 (2018), by Gaurav Sharma
Leading the Digital Change, Part 2 – Turning eIDs into universal tools (2018), by Gaurav Sharma
Leading the Digital Change, Part 3 – Successful Collaborations (2018), by Gaurav Sharma

REGULATION (EU) No 1316/2013 establishing the Connecting Europe Facility, amending Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 and repealing Regulations (EC) No 680/2007 and (EC) No 67/2010(12/2013), by the European Parliament and the European Council
Selected articles on Authentication (2014-today), by Heather Walker, Luis Balbas, Guillaume Forget, Jan Kjaersgaard, Dawn M. Turner and more

Selected articles on Electronic Signing and Digital Signatures (2014-today), by Ashiq JA, Gaurav Sharma, Guillaume Forget, Jan Kjaersgaard , Peter Landrock, Torben Pedersen, Dawn M. Turner, and more

The European Interoperability Framework - Implementation Strategy (2017), by the European Commission
Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL amending Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing (2016), by the European Commission

REGULATION (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation) (2016), by the European Parliament and the European Council
Proposal for a REGULATION concerning the respect for private life and the protection of personal data in electronic communications and repealing Directive 2002/58/EC (Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications), (2017), by the European Parliament and the European Council
Revised Directive 2015/2366 on Payment Services (commonly known as PSD2) (2015), by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union
REGULATION (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (2014) by the European Parliament and the European Commission
DIRECTIVE 2013/37/EU amending Directive 2003/98/EC on the re-use of public sector information (2013) by the European Parliament and the Council