Denmark is among Europe’s leaders in digital identity – thanks to years of cooperation between the state and the private sector and the platform developed by Nets, part of the Nexi group. The lecture showed how bank login became a national key to services and why the third generation of eID is modular, secure, and easy to use. The story offers lessons for other countries as well.
Who is behind the Danish eID
The Nexi group brings together three European leaders in paytech who seek to shape innovation, digitalization, and payments. It operates in 25 countries, works with over 1 000 financial institutions, and serves 2,4 million merchants as well as 160 million cards. It employs roughly 9 000 people and invests around 300 million annually in innovation.
Nets, originating from Northern Europe, has over 20 years of experience with electronic identity – from identity proofing through authentication to authorization and digital signature. In the region, it manages more than 9 million digital identities and processes roughly a billion transactions annually. Their eID infrastructure is used by thousands of service providers and dozens of banks, and in Denmark it is used by nearly the entire population.
Three generations: from 2003 to today
The Danish story began around 2003 in banks, where eID enabled the first digital self-service offerings. In 2010, two-factor authentication was added, and the government made access via eID mandatory for selected services, such as filing tax returns or claiming benefits. This made eID a common ticket to public and commercial services.
In the autumn of 2021, the third generation arrived, developed by Nets, which is compliant with PSD2, eIDAS, and GDPR and achieves the highest level of assurance. The platform is modular, built on APIs and microservices, uses OpenID Connect, and also offers layers for orchestrating existing identities. As a white-label solution, it can be deployed in other countries as well; based on experience, it is possible to deliver a solution with levels of assurance low, substantial, and high within five to six months.
Usability, security, and inclusion
Success rests on accessibility and a single key to thousands of use cases in the public and private sectors. One identity opens the door to services from over 2 000 private providers and numerous public services, which increases everyday value for the citizen. Denmark has long ranked at the top of the Digital Economy and Society Index, confirming the balanced cooperation between the public and private sectors.
In the country, eID has more than 5,2 million users, with about 94 % logging in via the mobile app and the rest using hardware tokens. The system supports various authentication methods – from time-based one-time codes and FIDO tokens to an audio reader for the visually impaired – and also caters to people without a smartphone. An important component is fraud and phishing prevention, ensured by specialized cybersecurity teams.
