Samsung and Google have both expressed interest in becoming European Digital Identity (EUDI) Wallet providers. That’s according to Mirko Mollik, Identity Architect at SPRIND, Germany’s Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation.
That immediately raises an uncomfortable question:
Are the wallet wars already decided?
Across Europe, we’re seeing a growing number of EUDI wallet initiatives led by governments, consortia, and private players. At the same time, the contrast with the US is hard to ignore. Several US states already support mobile driver’s licenses in Apple Wallet, and Google Wallet supports US digital passports.
History suggests a familiar pattern: platforms with the biggest distribution channels tend to win.
If that holds true here, it’s reasonable to expect that wallets embedded into devices and operating systems could become the most widely used digital identity wallets over time.
But if that’s the case, then the most important question isn’t who wins the wallet wars.
It’s this:
How can companies still benefit from the EUDI rollout, regardless of which wallet users choose?
To us, the real opportunity doesn’t sit in the wallet itself.
It sits in the ecosystems built around wallets.
The EUDI Wallet enables individuals to hold verified identity data. The real value is unlocked when businesses can consume that verified data and combine it with data from other trusted sources to create purpose-specific derived credentials.
For example:
- Taking verified identity attributes from an EUDI wallet
- Combining them with financial, professional, or sector-specific data from another trusted source
- Issuing a derived credential tailored for a specific use case, such as financial services, employment, travel, or regulated commerce
In that model, the wallet is the entry point. The value is everything we build on top of it.
Which brings us to more strategic questions for the ecosystem:
Is it worth fighting the wallet wars at all? Or is the bigger opportunity in enabling interoperability, data reuse, and new business models that work across any compliant wallet?
One important clarification Mirko also made during the conversation: even if big tech companies become wallet providers, they will still need to comply with EU law, meet strict privacy and security requirements, and go through the same certification processes as any other EUDI wallet provider.
So the playing field may be more regulated than previous platform battles.
