BankID saves society billions

The report concludes that BankID has delivered significant socio-economic benefits by streamlining processes, reducing costs, boosting digitalisation, and strengthening security and trust in digital transactions.

– For 20 years, BankID has been a key driver of Norway’s rapid digitalisation. With 16,000 services in both the public and private sector and 4.6 million users accounting for nearly 1 billion logins and signatures each year, BankID has become the first choice for both businesses and citizens in Norway, says Øyvind Westby Brekke, CEO at Stø, the company behind BankID.

The report from Oslo Economics highlights how BankID simplifies and makes processes more efficient for both businesses and citizens: “Since its inception, BankID has accelerated and expanded the digitalisation of society by leading the way in establishing user-friendly electronic identification for secure online identification and signing, with very widespread adoption and usage.”

– There are major cost savings for the public and private sectors when manual work is replaced by fast and automated solutions based on BankID’s trusted security. For most Norwegians, BankID is essential for a smooth everyday life as more and more activities move online, says Brekke.

Building on a Public-Private Success

The BankID solution was adopted by the public sector in 2012, and, according to Oslo Economics, stands as a model for how technology can strengthen the economy. Through quick and secure online identification and signing, BankID has enabled safe access to a wide range of services, from banking and insurance to public services and online shopping.
The report highlights the benefits of continuing today’s situation with a widespread solution for signing and identification.

– It is smart to build on what we have, instead of creating something new. Not only is it very costly to develop and operate a new solution, but it also takes a very long time to create new habits and good user experiences. It’s better to further develop something everyone already knows and is used to, says Brekke.

Expensive to Develop Something New

Oslo Economics has estimated the costs of developing a new public eID. According to their calculations, it would cost NOK 3.75 billion to develop and roll out a public eID solution at the highest security level.
– With continued cooperation with the public sector, we can make Norway a leader in digitalisation. Many things need improvement, such as making both public and private services more user-friendly and smart, and preventing fraud to an even greater extent. It is also urgent to ensure that everyone can participate digitally, regardless of age, skills, or finances. We must solve these challenges together, with efforts from all parties, says Brekke, who emphasises the work is well underway from Stø’s side:
– We are now decoupling BankID from the customer relationship with banks, which means that government agencies can also issue BankID. We believe this will be a valuable contribution to achieving the government’s goal of 5 million people with high-security eID by 2030, says Brekke.

2 Billion in Savings Including ID-porten

Earlier this year, Oslo Economics carried out a similar analysis of the benefits from the Digitalisation Agency’s shared solutions. The benefit from these public digital solutions was estimated at just under NOK 1 billion, with ID-porten accounting for NOK 270 million in savings. The public analysis did not include the value of BankID and other commercial actors. Looking at both analyses together, the societal benefit is even greater.
– The combined value of ID-porten and BankID provides an annual benefit to society of nearly NOK 2 billion. This is clear evidence that cooperation between the public and private sectors is profitable for everyone, says Brekke.

For more information and the whole report, visit Oslo Economics’ website.

About the Oslo Economics Benefit Models

• Estimates the socio-economic benefits and costs for the whole of society, i.e. for businesses, the public sector and private individuals.
• Used to assign a value to the effects of solutions, such as time savings in both private and public sector, reduced transaction costs, and other economies of scale.
• The models calculate benefits based on usage data and solution-specific assumptions for gains and costs.
• The report is limited to estimating the socio-economic benefits of BankID, and any costs of the current situation are not assessed in the analysis.
• Qualitative benefits such as improved user experience and accessibility are not included in the calculation.
• The costs for those who currently do not have access to BankID are also not quantified.