Digital wallets are emerging as new tools that provide citizens with control over their personal data while allowing innovation in service delivery. Wallets promise various functionalities, from authentication, authorisation, and signing, to storage and generating qualified electronic attestations. Given the potential, policymakers and service providers face significant challenges in selecting, developing, implementing, and regulating digital wallets due to the lack of clarity about their characteristics. This paper focuses on this lack of clarity. Through a socio-technical systems theory lens, we developed a comprehensive taxonomy for classifying digital wallets. Our empirical analysis reveals a taxonomy of 47 characteristics in 14 dimensions. The contribution of this taxonomy is two-fold. Firstly, it can help develop a more precise theory on specific types of wallets. Secondly, actors in the field can use the taxonomy for more granular communication on wallet development and adoption challenges, standardisation efforts, and policy development.

Across the European continent, governments and GovTech companies are rushing to launch digital identity wallets for citizens. These wallets should allow citizens to obtain a higher level of control over their personal data. While there are some regulations and policy directions, actors are struggling with the design, launch, and governance of these digital wallets. Those looking for help will find little guidance in academic literature. The objective of this paper is to provide insights in barriers for launching digital identity wallets by a public-private ecosystem. Drawing on the case study approach, we study the available regulations and policy directions, and collect insights from workshops with policy makers and aspiring wallet providers. The main findings indicate that barriers such as the lack of boundary resources (e.g. shared data specifications and exchange standards) and the absence of a collaborative, public-private governance impede the launch of digital identity wallets. Policy makers looking to speed up the launch of digital wallets must focus on removing these barriers, starting with the development and governance of boundary resources by the public-private ecosystem.