Digital identity interoperability is moving into a new phase as conformance testing and self-certification for OpenID credential protocols become available, giving providers a way to test implementations against the standards themselves rather than relying solely on connections between individual systems.
For companies building infrastructure around European Digital Identity Wallets (EUDI Wallets), the shift could have significant implications for how digital identity systems are tested, deployed and scaled. Hopae’s analysis highlights the importance of the development for the wider ecosystem, particularly for providers building EUDI Wallet verification infrastructure across several EU Member States.
The standards at the centre of the testing framework are part of the OpenID4VC family, developed by the OpenID Foundation’s Digital Credentials Protocols Working Group. OpenID4VCI covers the issuance of digital credentials to wallets through an OAuth 2.0-based API, while OpenID4VP governs how wallets present those credentials to verifiers.
The High Assurance Interoperability Profile (HAIP) sits across both standards. Rather than creating another protocol, HAIP limits some of the implementation choices available within OpenID4VCI and OpenID4VP. It works alongside credential formats including IETF SD-JWT VC and ISO mdoc to create a more consistent technical baseline for high-assurance use cases.
OpenID4VP 1.0 reached Final status on 9 July 2025, followed by OpenID4VCI 1.0 on 16 September 2025 and HAIP 1.0 on 24 December 2025. Final status is significant because regulators generally require standards to reach this stage before they can be referenced directly in legislation.
The issue is that following the same specification does not necessarily mean two implementations will work together.
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