European Business Wallets: a €150 billion opportunity every year

The European Commission estimates the annual savings associated with European Business Wallets at €150 billion. Miguel Ángel Calero, Executive Director of ISBE, opened his keynote at MERGE Madrid 2026 with that figure, in a session devoted to the opportunity this new instrument offers businesses, public administrations and trust service providers.

Every company has to prove it exists each time it enters a new relationship: deeds, powers of attorney, tax certificates, know your business (KYB) checks and public tenders. According to the European Commission’s impact assessment, SWD(2025) 837, onboarding a business customer currently takes around 50 days. With business wallets, the cost of that process could fall by 30% to 50%, and the estimated saving for each SME reaches €42,000 a year.

It is worth distinguishing between three types of wallet. A generic personal wallet lets someone say “I have this”, but it carries no legal value. The European Digital Identity Wallet lets citizens say “I am me”, with validity throughout the Union. The business wallet lets someone say “I act for this company”, also with validity throughout the Union. It is this last one that addresses representation, mandates and the identity of legal entities.

The rules are being written now

The European Commission presented its proposal for a Regulation on the establishment of European Business Wallets on 19 November 2025. The Council of the EU adopted its negotiating position on 9 June 2026, and the next step is negotiation with the European Parliament; Member States aim to reach a final agreement before the end of 2026. Those who take part now help to define how the system will work; those who arrive later will have to adapt to it.

Europe is already building it. Participants include public administrations such as the European Commission, the competent ministries of the Netherlands, France and Italy, and the Spanish Digital Administration Agency (AEAD); business registers such as KVK, Bolagsverket and CORPME, together with GLEIF and its vLEI identifier; qualified trust service providers such as FNMT, Namirial, SwissSign and Intesi Group; wallet providers; and banking and payments institutions.

WE BUILD is the only large scale pilot focused on the business wallet. It brings together around 200 organisations from 27 countries, including 13 business registers, 25 public agencies and 30 qualified trust service providers. Its use cases cover business verification, branch registration, tax filing in another Member State, company representation, microcredentials, access under the Once Only principle, transport, data spaces, electronic invoicing and corporate payments.

Why an identifiable and auditable infrastructure is needed

72% of EU GDP depends on suppliers that are identifiable, auditable and able to enter into contracts: the public sector accounts for 20%, regulated industries for 22% and their suppliers for 30%. Public permissionless networks are not designed to meet these requirements. They do not allow a contract to be signed with an identified responsible party under DORA, NIS2 or Spain’s National Security Framework (ENS); they do not guarantee the user rights required by the GDPR, the Data Act or eIDAS2; and they do not ensure sovereignty in the face of rules such as the US Cloud Act.

ISBE fills that space as the trust layer on which business wallets can operate.

When trust is verifiable, processes become programmable

With a verifiable business identity, services, artificial intelligence agents, processes, money and assets can be integrated into automated workflows with full safeguards. The keynote presented two examples.

The first is Smart Economy Córdoba, a model for public grants managed end to end on ISBE. The company is onboarded with its business register credential and that of its legal representative, supported by the trusted issuers registry. It applies for the grant from its wallet, with a prior eligibility check and a formal declaration, using the trust framework for the bank account credential. An AI agent carries out a preliminary assessment and a civil servant makes the decision. Each step leaves verifiable evidence for the comptroller’s supervision, and payment is made on a conditional basis in regulated euros spent in local businesses.

The second is intragroup treasury, a case that can be built today. Each subsidiary has its own business wallet and a verifiable identity as a legal entity. People and agents act within mandates with verifiable limits. Group rules for cash pooling and netting run as verifiable business logic, intercompany transfers settle in tokenised euros regulated under MiCA, and evidence of compliance and transfer pricing is certified from the outset.

Since 2024, European rules have required every crypto asset transfer to carry the identity of both sender and recipient. At the same time, industry initiatives such as OTL, involving players such as Fireblocks, Robinhood and MetaMask, are developing an identity layer for digital asset finance. The proposal for Europe is for the business wallet to serve as the trusted counterparty identifier, on European infrastructure.

The hard part is not the wallet

The main challenges are not technological. There is semantics: what “legal representative” means across 27 legal systems. And there is governance: who decides who may issue each credential, and who is liable when something goes wrong. ISBE provides shared trust registries and institutional governance. Other questions remain open: mandates for people and AI agents, who bears the costs until adoption is widespread, and the weight of global standards set outside Europe.

ISBE today offers businesses, developers and public administrations the services they need to make the most of this programmability: certified evidence, verifiable business logic, digital identity, digital money and tokenised assets. Permissioned decentralised finance will be the next step.

Getting started involves three steps. First, identify a process in which the organisation has to prove who it is again and again. Second, connect to ISBE through a certified service provider. Third, go live with a public body or within your own group of companies.

What is a European Business Wallet? It is a digital tool that allows a company to store and present its identity and other verifiable credentials, such as powers of attorney or certificates, with validity throughout the European Union, both with public administrations and with other businesses.

How does it differ from the European Digital Identity Wallet? The European Digital Identity Wallet certifies the identity of a natural person. The business wallet certifies a legal entity and makes it possible to prove that someone is acting on its behalf.

What stage has the regulation reached? The European Commission presented the proposal in November 2025 and the Council set out its position in June 2026. The final text will be negotiated with the European Parliament.

What does ISBE contribute? ISBE is a public permissioned infrastructure, with identified participants and a responsible party, that complies by design with the GDPR, eIDAS2 and the wider European framework. It provides shared trust registries, certified evidence and verifiable business logic on which business wallets can operate.

How can a company get started? By identifying a repetitive verification process, connecting to ISBE through a certified service provider and going live with a public body or within its group.