All new emerging technologies have one thing in common: they are all about data. A lot of digitalisation is taking place, with data being the dominant business model. Innopay, a fast-growing Dutch consultancy specialised in innovation and a recent EIT Digital partner, stepped into this business in 2003.
The firm handles digital transactions, leveraging digital technologies to help clients innovate the way they create and exchange value. Innopay has grown since its inception to become a leading player in the Netherlands and Germany, with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin and Frankfurt. According to Douwe Lycklama, owner and founder of Innopay, data sharing is an emerging topic. He says, “A lot of digitalisation is taking place, with data being the dominant business model. Competitive power is determined by the biggest companies who can obtain the most data, because with a huge amount of data companies can work on Artificial Intelligence.”
Let’s take a look at how Innopay uses data to run its business and how the company plans to transform the digital transaction industry.
Involved with iDEAL
In 2003 itself, Innopay got deeply involved with the creation of iDEAL, a reliable, secure and easy online payment method. Practically all Dutch banks, web shops and companies now use this payment method. “Our ambition is to be the leading company in digital transactions, which extend nowadays also into digital identity, invoicing and data sharing. Our approach relies on how to collaborate with competing parties in a digital world to make better services for consumer and business users.”
Collaboration with EIT Digital
Innopay collaborates itself in the EIT Digital Innovation Activity Digital Chain of Trust , a Blockchain-based service to store records securely, with, amongst others, Frauenhofer Gesellschaft, System@Tic Paris-Region, Poste Italiane and Fondazione Bruno Kessler. “We are very enthusiastic about EIT Digital’s ambitions to foster collaboration in Europe. If you want to innovate, you cannot work alone.”
Making sharing data safe!
In the world of data sharing, and digital age, every action becomes a transaction. With every action on a smartphone, in an app or an Internet of Things tool, the users pays with data. “We feel that something is missing in digitalisation. And that is the soft infrastructure to make sure that you can share data. We need Many to Many character of data sharing to make the next wave of digitalisation. This means, sharing data in a safe and easy way, with you in control.”
To bring about this next wave of digitalisation, Lycklama believes standardisation and networks of trust are needed. In the logistics sector, Innopay launched the iSHARE standard which provides logistics companies with a uniform, simple and controlled way of sharing logistics data, just as iDEAL did with payments. “It is about adopting a set of agreements for data sharing without being forced to work with just one platform. Standardisation is a way to grant access to data to different actors in the chain. Only companies with a trusted status can operate in this network.”
iDeal solution for public transport
The iDEAL solution seems to be an ideal solution for data sharing in other sectors as well. Lycklama points to, amongst others, the electronic billing market, digital identity and data sharing. But also the market related to the charging of electronic cars. “In every Dutch city, each municipality was working on its own charging infrastructure, resulting in every city providing its own passes to charge a car. Now we’ve made sure that all car owners only need one pass to charge their car in any city in the Netherlands by making the chargers interoperable. That is unique.”
Dutch Digitalisation Strategy
Another digitalisation issue, according to the Innopay founder, is the use of data sharing rights. “With the new privacy regulation in Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), people have rights relating to their data, but they lack the means to claims these rights. That entire piece is missing. There is no soft infrastructure for the owners of data. We need here a solution like iSHARE that we made for the logistics sector.”
Lycklama feels the Dutch Digitalisation Strategy is a first step by the Dutch Government to increase citizens’ control over their own data by building a soft infrastructure for data management. The Strategy outlines a clear framework for personal data management as well as agreements about identification, authentication and authorisation – which basically means standardisation of existing technologies.
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