eIDAS has helped herald a new era of e-signing for businesses operating across Europe. E-signatures provide a fast, secure, efficient and cost-effective alternative to paper signing and the eIDAS regulation ensures legal certainty across the EU with its requirements for Basic, Advanced and Qualified e-signatures.

Since the beginning of 2018, PSD2 or the 2nd Payment Services Directive is national law in all EU member states. Some countries have implemented the new directive early on, such as Germany and the UK, but for some it is still work in progress today.

In our recent blog post series about the eIDAS regulation, we have addressed local signing and the difference with remote signing (or server signing), which relies on a Trust Service Provider (TSP) to remotely generate and manage the signing keys on the signatory’s behalf.

The anonymity provided by some blockchains is one of the largest attractions about this technology. For business adoption though identity on and off the chain is crucial, legally and logistically. On an entirely distributed, decentralized blockchain such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, this anonymity serves a purpose and encourages individual use. For business adoption however it poses problems.

In the context of a Digital Single Market in Europe, the need for secure electronic transactions across member states is a big topic for banking and financial services players. Electronic ID and trust services are key compliance factors for identification and authentication after recent regulatory updates such as PSD2 or AMLD4.

In this blog post, I want to limit myself to the essential basis of eIDAS, the HSM (Hardware Security Module). If you want more information about eIDAS, please visit the websites mentioned at the end of this article.

While it still presents a challenge to many businesses and government institutions, the greater idea behind eIDAS is to strive towards a true digital single market in Europe. It’s meant to make life easier and more secure when it comes to electronic identification, authentication and digital “transactions” in the broadest sense!