If I understand Swedish BankID correctly, it's a common system owned / operated / used by all the banks together (via some company they all own part of or something, I presume), right?
Here in Finland, each bank has their own. Lots of other entities, webshops -- of both big brick-and-mortar companies and pure online businesses -- and state / municipal agencies alike usually use the banks' services. They have umpteen bank logos to click on their check-out purchase or secure login pages, "Log in with Nordea", "Log in with S-Pankki", etc. For instance, when I want to access my data[0] in the health-care / prescriptions DB of the Social Insurance Institution[1] (i.e. the green "Sign in to e-Services" button on [2]) as a private citizen[3], I click the logo of my bank on the next page the button opens, and then use my bank's mobile app to prove I'm me.
Feels a bit inefficient compared to a common system, but then again there might be a benefit in decentralization: If there is a problem one system, the others still work. Also, if you are going to have a single centralised service, one would have thought the thoroughly registered and bureaucratized Nordic countries would have implemented this as a state service -- in Finland probably run by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency[4]; in Sweden by the Swedish Tax Agency[5][6]. AIUI, that's how it works in our Baltic neighbour Estonia.
[EDIT: Minor wording changes / clarification.]
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[0] Say, to check if one of my prescriptions for diabetes medicines is running out and needs renewing.
Yes this is right. So for banking, this is what you need and that works across the board. But there is actually competition for general authentication, so for login to government services you can now often use Freja eID. It is independent from banks, and does not work for banks, but their niche seems to be authentication face-to-face, replacing the physical card, and also Covid vaccination proof etc. So there is an ecosystem and some competition, but BankID is the giant.
Here in Finland, each bank has their own. Lots of other entities, webshops -- of both big brick-and-mortar companies and pure online businesses -- and state / municipal agencies alike usually use the banks' services. They have umpteen bank logos to click on their check-out purchase or secure login pages, "Log in with Nordea", "Log in with S-Pankki", etc. For instance, when I want to access my data[0] in the health-care / prescriptions DB of the Social Insurance Institution[1] (i.e. the green "Sign in to e-Services" button on [2]) as a private citizen[3], I click the logo of my bank on the next page the button opens, and then use my bank's mobile app to prove I'm me.
Feels a bit inefficient compared to a common system, but then again there might be a benefit in decentralization: If there is a problem one system, the others still work. Also, if you are going to have a single centralised service, one would have thought the thoroughly registered and bureaucratized Nordic countries would have implemented this as a state service -- in Finland probably run by the Digital and Population Data Services Agency[4]; in Sweden by the Swedish Tax Agency[5][6]. AIUI, that's how it works in our Baltic neighbour Estonia.
[EDIT: Minor wording changes / clarification.]
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[0] Say, to check if one of my prescriptions for diabetes medicines is running out and needs renewing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kela_(institution)
[2] https://www.kela.fi/web/en
[3] They also happen to be my employer, but work is a whole separate VPN.
[4] https://dvv.fi/en/about-the-agency
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Tax_Agency
[6] https://www.skatteverket.se/servicelankar/otherlanguages/ine...