Interview with Roland Adrian
In our webinar, we will be talking about the end-to-end digitalisation of business processes, particularly when digital proof of identity and qualifications is required. In an interview with Roland Adrian, CEO of Verimi, we will be looking at the key points again.
We will be asking why companies need a so-called “wallet-as-a-service” (WaaS) and how Verimi supports partner companies with these solutions in the consistent digitalisation.
The example of the healthcare sector shows the importance of Wallet-as-a-Service solutions and what a concrete implementation can look like. Did you know that soon more than half of the 75 million people with statutory health insurance in Germany will be able to use a Verimi WaaS? At Barmer, the WaaS already forms the basis for the health ID of the insured and the AOK community will launch the Verimi solution in all 11 AOK regions nationwide in spring 2025.
Interview:
Katrin Bouani Yonga: Roland, can you briefly explain what exactly a “Wallet-as-a-Service” is?
Roland Adrian: A “wallet-as-a-service” is basically a white-label wallet, i.e. a solution that is designed under the brand and in the look and feel of a customer. The white-label solution is designed to map specific and individual use cases and thus to contribute to the consistent end-to-end digitalisation of a partner company’s workflows.
Katrin: What exactly do “white label” and “wallet” mean in this context?
Roland: “White label” means that a partner company, i.e. our customer, offers the Verimi solution under its own branding. The “wallet” itself is a flexible platform for the secure management of digital identity data. The aim is to store identity attributes in a verified manner, to keep them available for retrieval and to fulfil relevant security requirements. These attributes can come from end customers, employees or network partners of our customer. At the front end, the user experience is ultimately a digital registration and a secure login to support our partner’s workflow without interruptions.
Katrin: What makes digital registration and secure login so special in this context?
Roland: There are two things that are special: firstly, the registration is ‘verified’. On the other hand, the login enables secure data retrieval. With verified registration, we ensure that the person is really who they say they are – and we also verify other attributes, such as telephone number, email address, driving licence, tax number, health insurance number, etc., whereby we are open to all possible attributes that a partner company requires for its business process. To access the data, we provide a secure application and a secure platform, as well as a secure login with two-factor authentication, so that only the authorised person can access the data and pass it on consciously – in other words, they can identify or legitimise themselves completely digitally, and here we can meet the highest security requirements.
Identification and logging in are just the tip of the iceberg: for identification alone, we currently have six identification procedures with over 20 variants on the wallet platform, plus special solutions such as identification with the electronic health card (eGK) or the integration of PIN letter procedures.
In addition, digital identity management involves a large number of processes that must be just as simple and secure.
Examples of this are lifecycle management, i.e. restoring access, dealing with expired proofs, etc., the transaction overview or consent management.
Katrin: For which industries is such a solution particularly interesting?
Roland: There are many sectors that would benefit from a Wallet-as-a-Service offering. The healthcare sector is one example. Here, the Verimi Wallet-as-a-Service, as a sectoral identity provider with gematik approval at a high level of trust, forms the basis of the health ID for Barmer and AOK. This means that policyholders can use various health applications, currently starting with ePrescription and ePatient File, in a fully digital way – i.e. without having to repeatedly use the electronic health card (eHC) or personal ID card (eID). Policyholders log in fully digitally and identify themselves at the same time. Without any plastic!
Other applications for WaaS include, for example, professions such as auditors, where it is important to be able to act at the interfaces with public administration and to obtain and verify legally valid authorisations from clients.
In the travel industry, it is helpful to have passengers reliably identified digitally before they travel and to be able to record visas, for example. This can make the entire travel experience more pleasant.
For mobility companies, it makes a lot of sense in business-to-business to reliably check and manage qualification certificates such as passenger transport licences from service providers and partners.
It is also very helpful for access and guest management to record and verify relevant attributes before the actual visit, so that a digital admission experience can be guaranteed during the visit itself.
The list goes on and on, but the important thing is that each industry has its own specific challenges – the aim of the Wallet-as-a-Service offering is to solve these specific requirements individually using proven building blocks. We can flexibly adapt to the respective security requirements of these processes – it doesn’t always have to be “highly secure”, as in the healthcare sector.
Katrin: What does Verimi offer as a solution?
Roland: The foundation of our solutions is our experience and the infrastructure from over six years of live operation of ID wallets in regulated and non-regulated sectors in Germany. In other words, live operation in the German market, with hundreds of real-world use cases and millions of real users and transactions in everyday life – not a laboratory project, not a pilot operation, not an experiment. That alone is a unique wealth of experience. Many relevant value-added modules have been developed around ID wallets and these are of course continuously being further developed based on practical requirements. The Wallet-as-a-Service offering is based precisely on this foundation, it offers a flexible platform of individually configurable and expandable modules – depending on the requirements of the company.
Katrin: What does the solution for a white-label wallet look like in concrete terms?
Roland: You can think of it as a modular system with components that are compatible with each other. We have covered almost everything that is needed for the management of digital identity data. The processes and modules are proven in practice, certified in many cases and approved by regulators.
For each customer, individual existing modules are taken from this, then supplemented with the specific requirements in each case and combined to form a new solution. This modular approach with integrated components is much more efficient and faster than designing and developing everything from scratch. We act as a specialised software company for customising, developing and integrating all elements, and can draw on a portfolio of many proven building blocks. In addition to developing the application, we also provide sustainable operation in correspondingly secure environments.
Katrin: How can a company determine whether the Verimi ID Wallet or the Verimi Wallet-as-a-Service is more suitable?
Roland: The Verimi ID Wallet is cross-sectoral and, with its many licences and identification methods, is very broadly set up for everyday and relatively standardised transactions. The core application is that a user can identify themselves to a partner using one of the Verimi ID methods, for example for onboarding, while at the same time storing their data in their VerimiID wallet and then being able to identify themselves, log in or sign very easily with many other partners. This is convenient for the user, conversion-strong and optimised for transaction costs for the partner company. It works in a similar way to payment wallets – the user has a personal account that they can use to make secure and easy transactions with many partners.
For specific applications of individual companies, a more individualised setup is often required, specifically for the defined ecosystem with tailored attributes and functions. This is what Wallet-as-a-Service offers. It is also about mapping everything in the look and feel and in the name of the partner company, thus building on the partner’s terms and conditions or contractual relationship with the customer or employee. For this, implementation as a data processor with separate data storage and a separate instance for each partner is often better suited – the proven modules from the Verimi ID Wallet and the Verimi platform are used in the application and in operation. The ongoing development of the common foundation serves as a source of synergy.
Katrin: What happens if a company wants to implement a white-label solution with Verimi?
Roland: The company should have the express intention of consistently digitising its processes and workflows end-to-end. And with that, the openness to question established approaches. Ideally, the first concrete use cases for digitisation have already been identified, with concrete attributes that must be provided for digital processing in a verified manner. Then we can start a joint project, develop a concept and specification, and use our proven building blocks to show how an efficient implementation can look. It would be best to talk about this individually.
Final words: We hope that this interview has given you a good overview of Wallet-as-a-Service and Verimi’s solutions. You can find more information on our website or contact us directly via LinkedIn. You can also watch the full interview as a free webinar here.
