Wallet as a Service (WaaS)
Wallet as a Service (WaaS) is a delivery model in which a provider hosts and operates the wallet infrastructure - issuance, storage, presentation, and the underlying security - on a buyer's behalf, rather than the buyer building and running that infrastructure itself.
Buying WaaS means procuring the wallet's behaviour through an API and a set of managed guarantees, not a piece of software the buyer installs and operates. The provider carries responsibility for key management, protocol compliance such as OpenID4VCI and OpenID4VP, and keeping up with evolving standards like eIDAS 2.0, while the buyer configures branding, credential types, and business logic on top. It is the same build-versus-buy trade-off organisations make for other infrastructure, applied to wallets: WaaS trades some control for faster time to market and no in-house cryptographic engineering team.
What does a buyer actually get with Wallet as a Service?
A hosted, managed wallet reachable through an API: credential issuance, storage, and presentation, plus the key management and protocol compliance behind them, operated by the provider. The buyer configures credential types, branding, and business rules rather than running the underlying infrastructure itself.