eIDAS 2.0 and the point of sale: what the European wallet will change in store (and what will still need covering)

By the end of 2026, every European Union member state will make a European Digital Identity Wallet available to its citizens. In France, France Identité already exceeds 4.5 million users. The wallet is often presented as a purely online tool. This is inaccurate: the eIDAS 2.0 regulation also provides for in-person journeys. But between what the text foresees and what will actually be deployed at the counter, there is a delay, a scope, and case-by-case adoption. Here is what the wallet will change at the physical point of sale, and what will remain your responsibility in the meantime.

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The wallet also provides for in-person use

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The EUDI Wallet's Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF) defines two modes of face-to-face interaction. The supervised proximity flow assumes the presence of a human operator, for example a salesperson at the counter. The unsupervised proximity flow is designed for a terminal or a kiosk, without human intervention. In both cases, the exchange of identity attributes takes place locally, via NFC or Bluetooth, based on the ISO/IEC 18013-5 standard, the same one used by the mobile driving licence.

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In other words, the wallet is not "online only" by nature: in-person use is part of the framework. But be careful, this does not mean available everywhere. A proximity journey only works if the retailer has chosen to equip itself and to accept it. Its presence in store will therefore happen retailer by retailer, point of sale by point of sale, and for many, not for a long time.

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A legal point reinforces this observation: the obligation to accept the wallet (article 5f, end of 2027) only targets remote journeys subject to strong authentication. It does not apply to face-to-face transactions. At the physical point of sale, nothing therefore requires accepting the wallet: in-person use remains a choice, not a constraint.

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How terminals and kiosks would work

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The unsupervised mode relies on a machine fitted with a reader, with no one behind it. The terminal displays what it is asking for, for example proving that the customer is over 18. The customer holds their phone close via NFC or scans a QR code, the wallet presents the strict attribute requested, the customer validates with a code or biometrics, and the terminal verifies the cryptographic signature. All in a few seconds, without human intervention, and without the customer revealing more than necessary (they can prove "of age" without disclosing their date of birth). It is the same standard as the mobile driving licence (ISO/IEC 18013-5).

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It is nonetheless worth staying clear-eyed: these terminals and kiosks are, at this stage, only a possibility provided for by the standard, not a deployed reality. Their widespread adoption is by no means certain. It assumes that each player invests in the hardware and integrates it into its journeys, without any obligation to do so. And even then, the terminal only verifies an identity or an attribute: neither creditworthiness, nor fraud, nor the consistency of a file.

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But the rollout at the counter will take time, and will be limited to identity

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Two important caveats temper this promise.

The first concerns timing. A proximity flow requires the relying party, the retailer, the dealership or the rental company, to be equipped with a compatible terminal and registered in the register of relying parties. This equipping of the field will be gradual and uneven, well after the wallet is made available on the citizen side. During a long transition period, some customers will have a wallet, others will not, and not every point of sale will be ready to accept it.

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The second concerns scope. The wallet certifies basic identity (the PID: surname, first name, date of birth, nationality). It carries neither creditworthiness nor fraud detection. The driving licence, essential in rentals, will come as a digital attestation (mDL) later, not in the initial core. As a result, even once present at the counter, the wallet will only handle part of the check.

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The point-of-sale use cases concerned

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Three families of use cases still need securing today, without waiting for the wallet.

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Financing in car dealerships. A dedicated loan taken out on site requires identity verification and a creditworthiness assessment face to face. Tomorrow the wallet will certify the identity of the equipped customer, but not their ability to repay, which will remain a separate obligation.

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Vehicle rental and leasing. At the counter, verification of identity and the driving licence precedes handing over the keys. It is a major anti-fraud control point: fake documents, impersonations, fictitious files. The mobile licence will only arrive gradually, and a share of customers will continue to present a physical document for a long time.

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Regulated sales in store. Certain transactions require enhanced identity checks. As long as not all customers are equipped and not all points of sale are connected, the control must work for everyone, wallet or not.

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The real risk: two-speed security during the transition

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The danger is not that the wallet "does not work" in store. It is the timing gap. As the wallet strengthens online journeys, then progressively equipped in-person ones, the point of sale not yet connected continues to rely on a visual check of an ID document by an untrained salesperson. Yet fraud does not retreat at the counter just because it retreats online: it moves towards the least protected channel.

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French retail loses several billion euros a year to fraud, part of which plays out at the physical point of sale: fake documents, stolen identities, fraudulent subscriptions face to face. eIDAS 2.0 will secure the digital channel first. The field, for its part, must be secured without delay.

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The answer: securing the point of sale today, alongside the wallet

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The wallet brings two guarantees: a reliable cryptographic reading of identity and a near-instant result. Nothing prevents you from bringing these same guarantees to the store right now, with a tool suited to the counter.

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Concretely, this means reading the NFC chip of the identity document directly from the salesperson's smartphone, with no dedicated hardware, coupled with document analysis and a fraud score delivered in under 2 seconds, backed by a shared fraud database. This is exactly the trust building block on which the wallet itself relies (chip reading to the ICAO standard), and it remains indispensable for all customers without a wallet, today as throughout the transition.

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Point-of-sale checklist for eIDAS 2.0

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• You know which journeys in your network remain physical, and which the wallet will eventually cover.
• Your in-store identity verification does not rely solely on a visual check.
• Your salespeople have a simple document-scanning tool, with no dedicated hardware.
• Your journey accepts both a physical document and a wallet, depending on what the customer presents.
• Your point-of-sale fraud score is delivered in a few seconds, backed by a shared database.
• Your setup keeps creditworthiness and fraud detection independent of the identity channel.

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In conclusion

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The European Wallet will come to the store too: in-person use is provided for in the text. But it will arrive later than online, unevenly, and it will certify only identity. Point-of-sale verification will therefore remain a subject in its own right, with its own tools and its own risks, throughout the transition. The right strategy is not to wait for the wallet, it is to equip the counter today and be ready to welcome it tomorrow.

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Meelo equips dealership, rental agency and store networks with field identity verification as fast and reliable as digital, complementing the wallet. Request a demo to assess the security of your points of sale.

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Sources: Regulation (EU) 2024/1183 (eIDAS 2.0); EUDI Wallet, Architecture and Reference Framework (supervised and unsupervised proximity flows, ISO/IEC 18013-5); European Commission, European Digital Identity Wallet, "Identification in proximity scenarios"; France Identité (French Ministry of the Interior); Adyen / CEBR, Retail Report (fraud in retail).

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