Winning Austria’s Private-Sector Digital Identity Race: A 2026 Go-to-Market Strategy for ich.app under eIDAS 2.0

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This project develops an analytical foundation for a go-to-market strategy for ich.app, a private digital identity solution operated by Payment Services Austria (PSA), in the context of eIDAS 2.0. The project assesses how ich.app can strengthen its positioning in Austria and prepare for integration into the emerging European Digital Identity ecosystem.  

The report highlights that eIDAS 2.0 enables licensed private providers to operate interoperable, high-assurance identity wallets across the EU. In Austria, this creates an opportunity to complement ID Austria with a bank-backed, private-sector identity platform focused on everyday use cases. A key market gap is identified: while registrations are high, actual usage remains low due to limited private-sector integration. 

The findings show that adoption depends on trust, usability, and repeatable private-sector use cases. Based on regulatory pressure, usage frequency, and willingness to pay, the most attractive initial sectors are financial services, insurance, and e-commerce. For these sectors, ich.app enables reusable KYC onboarding, secure authentication, passwordless login, age verification, and legally binding e-signatures. Overall, the report positions ich.app as a high-assurance, developer-ready identity layer that can activate Austria’s unused adoption potential while staying aligned with the European framework. 

Goal 

The goal of the project is to develop a go-to-market strategy that enables PSA to position ich.app successfully in Austria and prepare for future European expansion undereIDAS 2.0. This includes evaluating market potential across key sectors, deriving a clear value proposition, outlining product implications and pricing logic, and developingactionable sector-specific use cases to accelerate adoption. 

Methodology 

The project applies a structured secondary research approach combining regulatory analysis, market and competitor benchmarking, and sector deep dives. First, key eIDAS2.0 and EUDI Wallet documents were analysed to understand compliance and ecosystem dynamics. Second, mature European identity solutions were reviewed to extract strategic patterns. Third, sector-specific research translated these insights into prioritised use cases and recommendations for Austria and EU scalability. 

Results 

The analysis concludes that eIDAS 2.0 fundamentally reshapes the European identity market by opening wallet provision to licensed private actors under harmonised standards. In Austria, high registration but low usage indicates strong latent potential for a private-sector solution that increases everyday adoption. 

Ich.app’s strongest strategic advantage lies in combining PSA’s institutional trust with a usability-first product approach. The report identifies financial services, insurance, and e-commerce as the most attractive entry sectors and outlines concrete use cases that reduce onboarding friction, strengthen fraud prevention, and enable compliant authentication. Finally, it provides a phased roadmap to build Austrian traction first and scale readiness toward EU interoperability and broader cross-border adoption as eIDAS2.0 obligations increase toward 2027. 

Cooperation Partner 

• ​​PSA Payments Services Austria GmbH – ich.app 
  Handelskai 92, Gate 2  
  Austria 
  https://www.psa.at​ 

​​Contact Person​ 

• ​​Patrick Madl  - Patrick.Madl@psa.at​ 

Student Team 

• ​​​Tobias Jauschowetz  
  Alexandra Kluge  
  Daniil Koliasko  
  Una Luce McKenna  
  Emanuel Zeder​​ 

Project Manager 

• ​​​Diana Lauer