Two European Digital Identity Wallet Pilots to Start in Autumn 2025
New large scale pilots follow the original four
At the beginning of 2025, in anticipation of the completion of the four existing large-scale pilots (LSPs), the European Commission (EC) selected two proposals for a second round of LSPs to deploy the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet).
The EC has an ambitious goal to have at least 80% of EU citizens able to use a secure and widely accepted digital identity within 18 months. By December 2026, EU Member States must provide EUDI Wallets and PID under the eIDAS 2.0 regulation; and by December 2027, regulated industries will be required to accept EUDI Wallets for strong customer authentication (SCA).
This initiative aligns with the EC's vision for digital business transformation, as outlined by Ursula von der Leyen in 'A Competitiveness Compass for the EU', on 29 January 2025:
Digitalisation will go hand in hand with simplification to reduce the reporting burden. Companies and public authorities must be better accompanied when it comes to implementing EU legislation through stepped up support, capacity building and technical assistance. Use of digital tools and AI to power simplification efforts at governmental level must be facilitated, with full cross-border interoperability among public sector bodies’ solutions such as e-invoicing, e-signature, e-submissions and digital product passport. Wherever possible, reporting must move to digital formats based on standardised data. Building on the EU e-IDAS framework, the European business wallet will be the cornerstone of doing business simply and digitally in the EU, providing a seamless environment for companies to interact with all public administrations.
Through the two new projects, WE BUILD and APTITUDE, the EC aims to strengthen Europe’s digital economy and provide tangible benefits for businesses and consumers alike. Both pilots have a strong implementation strategy and potential impact and are set to revolutionise the way businesses interact within the EU digital economy.
WE BUILD
The WE BUILD (Wallet Ecosystem for Business & payment Use cases, Identification, Legal person representation, and Data sharing) consortium, comprising nearly 200 public and private sector partners— including 13 European business registers — aims to enhance digital identity and data sharing for businesses and payments across Europe. By leveraging the EUDI Wallet, the project will also facilitate seamless interactions between companies and public administrations, making cross-border business transactions more efficient and secure.
Key objectives
The WE BUILD consortium is dedicated to deploying 13 high-impact use cases to develop production-ready solutions for the EUDI Wallet. These include streamlining B2B, B2G and B2C interactions and improving essential processes such as ‘Know Your Customer/Business/Supplier/Employee’ (KYx).
Additionally, the consortium will leverage insights from previous pilot programmes to refine legal representation, signatory rights, and ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) attestations. These advancements will enhance cross-border transactions, reduce costs, and automate critical business processes, positioning Europe at the forefront of global digital identity innovation. The consortium has collected thirteen use cases, specifically in the areas of businesses and payments, exploring cross-border payment issuance, instant payments and account-to-account transfers, having “high level of occurrence and high impact on the digital economy”, where the ecosystem will contribute to making life easier for businesses and citizens.
Who's involved
WE BUILD has a balanced mix of Member States, public entities, SMEs, large European companies and global companies that are all leaders in the digital identity ecosystem. Many of the associated partners are companies that will contribute with technical tools and know-how which will ensure a stable consortium, where input from all relevant parts of the ecosystem is embedded in the project. A large number of the partners come from the current large scale pilots (LSPs), EWC and DC4EU, and are joined by several additional organisations that want to and will play a role in the development of the EUDIW ecosystem.
The consortium currently consists of 197 participants, including 99 beneficiaries and 74 associated partners, covering 27 countries. The consortium includes 20 wallet providers, 13 business register providers, 20 relying parties, 30 qualified trust service providers (QTSPs), 25 public identity (PID) providers, and 25 public agencies. With a total budget of approximately 25 MEUR, WE BUILD is well-positioned to deliver impactful results.
Led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (Netherlands), KVK (Netherlands), and Bolagsverket (Sweden), the WE BUILD initiative will run for 24 months starting in September 2025.
For more information on WE BUILD, visit https://www.webuildconsortium.eu/
APTITUDE
Drawing from the POTENTIAL and NOBID LSP consortia, the APTITUDE consortium involves over 110 organisations from more than 15 countries and will focus on testing digital wallets for the mobility, transport and banking sectors. Solutions for managing digital travel documents, including the electronic passport and vehicle registration certificate, will be tested and an advanced strong authentication system for digital payments will be developed.
APTITUDE starts in October 2025 and will run for 24 months.