Faster, more secure client onboarding, built on eIDAS 2.0 wallet standards
zkr.’s platform runs the compliance and onboarding processes of regulated organisations. More than 8,000 users work with it and the platform has carried out over 25 million checks to date. Accountancy firms form a key group of users. Under the Wta and the Wwft, they must identify their clients before accepting an engagement: business owners, directors and ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). And they must keep that information current for as long as the client relationship lasts.
One part of that process long remained manual work for accountancy firms: requesting identity, documents, data and signatures from their clients. zkr. wanted to solve that inside its own platform and built a client portal with TrustTech to do it. The portal establishes the client’s identity at any eIDAS assurance level, up to the highest. That identity and the wallet that comes with it then form the infrastructure over which all other data is shared and signed.
This gives accountancy firms one place to request everything they need from a client, with a verified sender, a complete audit trail and the option to have every request signed digitally. All of it runs inside Europe, on infrastructure where personal data never leaves the EEA.
A process with no room for doubt
Accountancy firms work under close regulatory scrutiny. The Wta and the Wwft set strict requirements for the traceability of client information. Yet the daily reality at most firms looked the same: documents arrived by email or through a generic portal, with no fixed structure and no verified sender. Engagement letters and other paperwork that needed signing ran through a separate track.
The consequences were concrete. Staff could not always confirm that a file truly came from the right client. Clients supplied the same paperwork again for every new engagement. Signing happened through separate tools or on paper. And the audit trail a supervisor asks for during an examination had to be reconstructed afterwards from mailboxes and folders.
“Firms kept asking their clients for the same paperwork, over email and separate tools, and then still had to arrange signing separately. With TrustTech we brought that together in one portal: the client identifies once and can then share and sign everything. That saves firms and their clients a great deal of back-and-forth.”
– Koen de Vrij, CEO zkr.
Establishing identity, at any assurance level
zkr. wanted one client portal where accountancy firms can request identity, documents, data and signatures from their clients, as part of the service zkr. already provides. TrustTech supplied the identity, wallet and signing infrastructure; zkr. and TrustTech built the portal on top of it together.
The foundation is the client’s identity. It can be requested at any eIDAS assurance level, up to assurance level high, depending on what a firm needs for an engagement. After identification, the client holds a personal wallet inside zkr.’s environment. The established identity carries over to every subsequent request, so the client never has to identify again for a new engagement.
The wallet as infrastructure for data sharing
All further exchanges run over that identity and wallet. Through the portal, firms request documents, have forms completed and receive data, each time tied to the identified client and recorded in a complete overview of who shared what, when, and with whom. The substantive assessment of submitted documents stays with the firm.
The platform is built so that any verifiable proof can be shared and verified directly. When data arrives as a verifiable credential, issued from a source system or, before long, from the European Digital Identity Wallet, its origin and authenticity are checked automatically. Every piece of data that arrives this way is one document fewer to check by hand.
TrustTech’s ID Connector is also integrated into zkr.’s platform. This lets the portal accept identities and data from any wallet that meets the European standards, including the EUDI Wallet once it arrives. When a new wallet or identification method that meets those standards becomes available, clients can use it straight away, without zkr. having to change the platform. The wallet, the credentials and the connector follow the standards behind the EUDI Wallet and eIDAS 2.0, as set out in the European Architecture and Reference Framework (ARF).
Signing with the same identity
Digital signing is built into the portal as well, based on the same identity. That too works at every level, up to the qualified electronic signature (QES), which is legally equivalent to a handwritten one. Every requested document, completed form, engagement letter and contract can be signed directly in the portal, with no separate tool and no paper in between.
“We laid down identity as the foundation and connected everything to it: data sharing, verification and signing. A firm knows who it is dealing with on every request and can have documents signed at the level the engagement requires. The more data becomes available as verifiable proof, the less there is left to check by hand.”
– Jaap Witsenboer, CEO TrustTech
Keeping personal data inside Europe by design
Accountancy firms handle confidential client information, which is why one decision carried real weight. Every part of the process runs inside TrustTech’s own infrastructure in the EEA. Personal data never leaves it. After 90 days, verification data is deleted automatically, with no one needing to act and no transfers to third countries. GDPR compliance holds as a property of the system rather than a policy people have to police.
Less manual work now, and a foundation that grows
Accountancy firms working with zkr. now handle requesting, sharing and signing with their clients in one place, with a verified sender and a history that holds up to a regulator. Clients identify once and use that identity for all their engagements. The substantive review of documents still sits with the firms. That share shrinks as the EUDI Wallet and other sources make more data available as verifiable proof. zkr. built the service; TrustTech supplies the rails beneath it.
“Our whole business is built on giving clients certainty, and with TrustTech we extended that certainty to the documents themselves. Every file our users share is now tied to a verified identity and credentials, so the firms we serve can trust what they receive without checking it twice. That is the foundation we wanted, and it gives us room to build.”
– Koen de Vrij, CEO zkr.