Quali-Sign
	Specialists in mobile apps for eID and Strong Customer Authentication

News Releases

Bank of England: Digital pound experiment report: Offline payments

10 April 2025

Today the Bank of England published their digital pound experiment report on offline payments. The experiment aimed to assess whether it is technically feasible to implement an offline payment functionality for a digital pound (CBDC). Quali-Sign participated in this experiment. Quali-Sign's digital wallet app was used to demonstrate offline P2P CBDC payments. Proximity communication between the payer and payee wallets was established using a QR Code and BLE. Final and irrevocable offline payments were demonstrated following an account based model. A synchronous payment flow was adopted. To counter double spend, the smartphone secure element was used to perform all cryptographic operations. A full transaction record (of the payer's offline history) was created comprising cryptographically verifiable chains of transactions. Pseudonymisation was used to protect payer and payee privacy.

Revue Banque article: eIDAS2 regulation heralds identity based payments	10 September 2024
Today Revue Banque published an article authored by Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting and Michael Adams of Quali-Sign exploring the promises - and challenges - of the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) EUDI wallet functionality for payment interactions. An english version is available here.

EiC conference in Berlin: EUDI Wallets	06 June 2024
Today Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting and Michael Adams of Quali-Sign took part in the european identity & cloud conference in Berlin. They presented on the potential of Qualified Electronic Attestation of Attributes (QEAA) with respect to the payment functionality of the EUDI wallet..

Paper commenting on BIS Polaris Handbook for Offline Payments with CBDC	15 September 2023
Today Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting and Michael Adams of Quali-Sign published a paper on LinkedIn commenting on the excellet Bank of International Settlement Nordic Innovation Hub Project Polaris Handbook for Offline Payments with CBDC.

European Payment Council: Interoperability of MSCTs based on NFC or BLE	27 June 2023
Today the European Payments Council published the “Interoperability of mobile initiated (instant) credit transfers (MSCTs) based on Near Field Communication (NFC) or Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)” document that has been prepared by the multi-stakeholder group on Mobile Initiated (instant) Credit Transfers (MSG MSCT). Link to news release. Link to document. Michael Adams of Quali-Sign is a member of the EPC multi-stakeholder group that produced the document.
P2P-2 and C2B-7 outline potential procedures for authorising payments with the forthcoming European Digital Identity Wallet.

European Payment Council: Interoperability of MSCTs based on NFC or BLE	10 January 2023
The public consultation on the document Interoperability of MSCTs based on NFC or BLE (EPC287-22v0.18), was launched earlier today on the EPC website. The closing date is 21 March 2023. Michael Adams of Quali-Sign is a member of the EPC multi-stakeholder group that produced the document.

Revue Banque article: Retail CBDCs - Digital cash for what purpose?

06 January 2023

Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting and Michael Adams of Quali-Sign published an article in the January 2023 issue of Revue Banque, the leading French language review dedicated to financial services, exploring the implications of implementing a retail CBDC that could be considered as a digital alternative to cash. See link to the Revue Banque article. For those who do not read French, see link to the English translation.

EiC conference in Berlin: EUDI Wallets	11 May 2022
Today, Michael Adams of Quali-Sign and Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting took part in the european identity & cloud conference in Berlin. They presented on the topic of the eIDAS 2.0 Payment-Authorizing Wallet, and outlined why in their view it is a key building block to CBDC.

@ThePaypers Financial Crime and Fraud Report 2022	21 April 2022
Michael Adams of Quali-Sign and Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting contributed to @ThePaypers Financial Crime and Fraud Report 2022, published this week. Their jointly authored article explores the potential of Securing Digital Payments with Identity Wallets.

Feedback on eIDAS 2.0 Architecture and Reference Framework - Outline	15 April 2022
Michael Adams of Quali-Sign and Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting today jointly provided feedback on the European Digital Identity Architecture and Reference Framework – Outline. A copy of their feedback is available here.

EU Commission: Large-scale Wallet Pilots Call	06 April 2022
Today Michael Adams of Quali-Sign and Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting jointly pitched at the EU Commission "Large-scale Wallet Pilots Call Explained" Webinar (payments workstream). A direct link to their slides is available here.

OIX Workshop	29 March 2022
Today Michael Adams presented at the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) March Workshop on the topic of The Road to EIDAS 2.0 Payment Wallets. Here are links to Michael's slides, a version including speaker notes and the recording.

Bank of England CBDC Technology Forum - January 2022	09 February 2022
Today the Bank of England has published the minutes of the January 2022 meeting of the CBDC Technology Forum. A copy of Michael Adams' presentation on a hybrid Account-token model is available here.

TRUSTECH 2021: KYC Portability and the new European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW)	30 November 2021
Today at TRUSTECH in Paris, Michael Adams of Quali-Sign joined Raphael Lemahieu of the EU Commission, Luca Boldrin of Infocert and Stéphane Mouy of SGM Consulting to present on the topic of KYC Portability and the new European Digital Identity Wallet (EDIW). A copy of Michael's presentation is available here.

JPSS Article: An integrated approach for electronic identification and central bank digital currencies	20 October 2021
In early 2021, Michael Adams of Quali-Sign co-authored a paper outlining a proposal for implementing Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) based on proposed open standards for a Digital Identity Wallet (DIW). This paper has been published in the AUTUMN/FALL 2021 edition of the Journal of Payment Strategy & Systems. A PDF copy of this paper is available here.

Publication of an EU report on digital identity	07 October 2021
Today the EU published a report titled Developing a digital identity solution for use by the financial sector based around eIDAS trust services. Quali-Sign was very happy to have provided assistance to the author on the topic of Open EDIWs (European Digital Identity Wallets). The report is available here.

Participation in the DCMS UK Digital Identity Trust Framework alpha testing	30 September 2021
Quali-Sign is delighted to have received confirmation from the UK Government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) of our participation in the alpha testing of the UK Digital Identity and Attributes Trust Framework.

Membership of the Bank of England's CBDC Technology Forum	29 September 2021
Today the Bank of England announced the membership of their CBDC Engaglement and Technology Forums. Michael Adams of Quali-Sign is a member of the Technology Forum.

Submission of evidence to the UK Parliament Covid-19 Vaccine Certification Committee	29 April 2021
In conjunction with four other interested parties, Quali-Sign responded to the committee's request for evidence. Our proposed approach for Covid-19 Certification for sports and entertainment events is based upon an Identity and Attributes Trust Framework, as being proposed by the UK Government.
Click here to view our submission

Our response to the ECB's Digital Euro Consultation	11 January 2021
Quali-Sign welcomes the prospect of a Digital Euro. Electronic identity and (embedded) SCA are fundamental elements to CBDC. In our opinion, the interoperability standards outlined in the Berlin Group 'Signed Payment Request' proposal would provide an excellent starting point.
Click here to view our response