E-Identification Startup Evrotrust Sets a Foot in Austria
The Bulgarian startup Evrotrust that specializes in e-trust and remote identification services is continuing its expansion within the EU market. The company launched operations in Austria January and is currently going through the Viennese acceleration program WeXelerate. The team has already been invited for two proofs of concept (PoC) – by one governmental organization and one telecom.
“Within the corporate partners the Evrotrust services are of interest and we have been invited to start concrete talks about proof of concepts and pilot projects. These corporate partners are one of the largest insurance company, one financial institution, a large telecom network provider and a large utility,” explains Konstantin Bezuhanov, CEO of Evrotrust. According to him, the startup is already in talks with private companies and public bodies in several EU countries, but also countries in EU-pre-accession phase also countries in the neighborhood of Europe.
The Austrian connection
After presenting its services to the Austrian Minister of Digital and Economic Affairs in January 2019, a year later Evrotrust also registered a legal entity in the country. Indeed the startup started intensifying its connection to the Austrian market last year after the company won on the national level of Raiffeisen banks corporate accelerator Elevator Lab. Now it’s going through another three-month long acceleration program – the Vienna-based multi-corporate WeXelerate. This would help the company gain mentors, advisors and corporate partners for pilot projects. According to Bezuhanov, there are already first PoCs.
The startup is still working on its relationship with public and governmental institutions. Following several presentations in front of government officials, dealing with eID, eSignature, eDelivery in Austria, government experts had expressed interest, and had started researching advantages and disadvantages of the Bulgarian solution towards the established e-signature system in Austria, explains the team. “We are constantly working on convincing the government to open the market and to provide equal chances even for foreign Quality Trust Service Providers (QTSP),” says Bezuhanov.
The current provider of e-identity services in Austria is A-Trust, a joint venture of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Raiffeisen Informationstechnik, Raiffeisen Zentralbank, and recently the local e-trust provider XiTrust. The company generates around half of its revenues (€4.3M) from services for public institutions but its business with the private sectors is also growing. According to a press release from March, the company is planning to launch new services and expand its portfolio.
Evrotrust growing
As of now, the Bulgarian company seems to be offering a broader portfolio of services that includes also remote e-Authorization that allows signature holders to authorize other people to act on their behalf.
In 2017, the Bulgarian startup Evrotrust Technologies launched a new generation solution for remote identification, remote issuing of qualified certificates and remote signing with qualified signature via smartphone. The company uses face recognition technology and verifications with different state registers to confirm the identity of the person issuing e-signature. The solution has the potential to make possible mass use of user-friendly and cost-effective remote services for identification, signing and secure delivery of messages and documents in the areas of banking, insurance, telecoms, e-commerce, as well as for e-government purposes.
In Bulgaria, Evrotrust is already working with some governmental structures such as The Ministry of Tourism, The Burgas Municipality. However, primarily, the partners of the company come from the private sector – banks like Raiffeisen, Societe Generale, or the telecom provider A1 Bulgaria.
Next Steps
The longer-term goal of Evrotrust is to build a digital bank of IDs. For now, the company is trying to reach as many as possible end customers, on the one hand, and on the other, B2B clients like from the financial, insurance, telco, transport, car rentals, etc., sectors. The startup is also currently trying to receive more citizens who would use the solution for eGov communication. “For instance, filing up Income Declarations or signing of export/import documentation are among the top time consumers for the citizens and together with the solution of Evrotrust, the time can be reduced by over 96%, which an impressive statistic, ” says Bezuhanov.
