UCD can only become infrastructure, and reach national scale, if users are given a choice between different wallet providers, and are assured of interoperability and account portabiity between them.
Initially, we expect that wallet providers will be SMEs, suitably regulated by DSIT, and presently acting as commercial identity proofing providers (IdPPs). Many of these companies know that their IdPP role may vanish if government starts to provide legal identity attributes free-of-charge to an individual’s chosen wallet provider, and so are keen to adopt the wallet provider role themselves.
Later on, we expect that at least one of the more nimble retail banks will see marketing advantage in becoming a wallet provider. And then all the others will follow, both to avoid being perceived by customers as technically backward, and to benefit from reduced customer onboarding/KYC costs.
Also the mobile network operators may offer wallets. And Big-Tech (i.e. Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple) could decide to participate, but would have to accept external regulation, something they have long tried to avoid.