What the European Business Wallet would mean for banks and regulated sectors
You would be a relying party
Article 3 defines a European Business Wallet-relying party as a natural person, an economic operator or a public sector body that relies upon European Business Wallets. A bank onboarding a corporate customer, an insurer checking a broker, or any firm that has to establish who it is dealing with would sit in that category. The proposal does not name financial institutions anywhere else. [1]
Nothing would oblige you to accept one
The acceptance obligation in Article 16 falls on public sector bodies, and on them alone: within 24 months of entry into force they would have to let economic operators identify, sign or seal, submit documents and exchange notifications through a Wallet. The proposal sets out no equivalent duty for private relying parties, and use would stay voluntary for businesses. Accepting a Business Wallet would be a commercial decision, not a compliance deadline. [1] [5]
What you could check, and how
Article 6 would require Wallets to support common protocols and interfaces for a relying party to request and validate Wallet owner identification data and electronic attestations of attributes, to verify the authenticity and validity of the Wallet itself, and to be authenticated in return where that is required. Article 5 gives the owner the other side of that exchange: selective disclosure, and the power to authorise a relying party to request attestations and to revoke that authorisation later. [1]
Under Article 8, Wallet owner identification data would carry at least the official name of the economic operator as recorded in the relevant register, plus its unique identifier, and would be issued as a qualified electronic attestation of attributes by a qualified trust service provider, or by a public sector body responsible for an authentic source. Member States would notify those authentic sources to the Commission, which would publish the list in machine-readable form. [1]
Identifiers you already use
Article 9 would reuse the European Unique Identifier, where an economic operator has one, rather than minting a new number. That is the identifier assigned under the Company Law Directive, (EU) 2017/1132, and the one behind the interconnected business registers and the beneficial ownership registers. The recitals say the framework should rely on the same issuance and recording process for operators covered by the anti-money-laundering acquis. Operators without a European Unique Identifier would get one created under an implementing act. [1] [9]
Beyond identity, the recitals name the kind of attributes a Wallet could carry as attestations: current address, VAT registration number, tax reference number, Legal Entity Identifier, EORI number and excise number. Each would arrive signed by its issuer rather than as a scan. [1]
Who is allowed to sign
Article 5 would let a Wallet owner authorise multiple users to operate its Wallet and revoke those authorisations. Article 6 attaches conditions to that: mappings between roles and attributes would have to be verifiable, auditable, revocable and traceable to their legitimate issuers, with conflicts of roles, over-delegation and expired authorisations detected and prevented in real time, and the authorisation logic interoperable across Member States. Checking signatory authority is the part of onboarding that is hardest to automate today. [1]