The European Digital Identity (eIDAS 2.0) proposal will see the creation of digital identity wallet is a secure app that will allow citizens across the continent to verify their ID, access public and private services and store sensitive digital documents in one place.

However, the ECSAs - made up of the European Banking Federation, the European Association of Co-operative Banks, and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group - has raised concerns about the wording of the legislation.

"The current wording seems to imply that the full payment sphere is included in eIDAS 2.0 on a mandatory basis," says a statement.

If widely used cards and payment specifications were included in the new wallet infrastructure, "huge investments" would be required not only in the financial sector, but also for the overall acceptance network, hitting merchants and service industries.

The plan in its current form also fails to address the question of liability, say the ECSAs.

"The ECSAs therefore recommend, in order to avoid the mandatory nature of the acceptance of the EUDIW in terms of strong customer authentication on payments, limiting such mandatory acceptance to the verification of the user’s identity only."

The call comes even though a multi-country consortium consisting of banks and technology companies has already been chosen to deliver a cross-border payments pilot for the digital identity wallet.