How is digital identity powering utilities sector innovation?

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The energy and utilities sector, like other critical infrastructure industries, has been slow to digitise. However, rising customer expectations, tighter regulations, and increasingly sophisticated utility fraud are driving urgent change. As competition intensifies and consumers become more willing to switch providers for better service or pricing, pressure is mounting on support teams and back-office operations.  

Digital identity for utilities platforms offer a trusted solution to key challenges in the utilities sector while delivering seamless digital experiences, ensuring utility compliance, and protecting revenue. Platforms like itsme^® enable automated customer onboarding and frictionless access to services, helping reduce fraud, enhance customer experience, and boost retention. Customers can digitally register, log in, sign contracts, update details, and access their portals. Meanwhile, providers benefit from lower fraud losses, reduced support costs, and stronger digital engagement. 

This blog explores how identity verification for utilities can support the modernisation and digitisation of Europe’s utilities sector, improving security, efficiency, and the overall customer experience. 

Utilities often lose revenue to fake sign-ups, deliberate non-payments, and identity fraud. Basic client onboarding and identity checks leave the sector especially vulnerable to criminals who rotate identities to avoid detection and debt collection.

A common fraud technique is account takeover (ATO) fraud , whereby cybercriminals hijack customer accounts to steal refunds or outgoing payments sent from utility companies, such as refunded overpayments, security deposits, damage claims settlements, energy efficiency bonuses, disaster recovery support, etc.

Synthetic identity fraud is also a growing threat to the utilities sector, whereby bad actors open fake accounts to access services without ever intending to pay. They use a mix of real and fabricated data, often harvested through data breaches or automated bot attacks. This threat is further accelerated by generative AI, which can produce increasingly convincing false credentials and fake documents using publicly available data. GenAI can even be used to create deepfake videos with fabricated gestures and speech patterns to impersonate customers. Losses from synthetic identity fraud have surged past $35 billion globally in 2023.

Another common form of fraud in the utilities sector involves creating "Mickey Mouse accounts", whereby fake or obviously invalid names (like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck) are used to quickly register for services online. Fraudsters use those names to test vulnerabilities in onboarding processes, exploit billing loopholes, or evade detection by customer service teams.

Digital identity platforms can significantly raise the barrier in the face of fraudsters, helping utilities to strengthen customer verification to counter fraud from the source:

• Secure identity verification for utilities enables automated utility onboarding with fast, reliable KYC that blocks synthetic identities and “Mickey Mouse” accounts.
• Linking each customer to a verified ID enforces a one-account-per-person policy, eliminating duplicates and improving debt traceability.
• Verified identity data also enables providers to match outstanding balances across accounts, supporting more effective debt recovery and ultimately lowering financial risk.
• Digital identity platforms help safeguard customer portals by enabling multifactor, passwordless authentication in utilities. This significantly reduces the risk of identity fraud and account takeovers.

Protect your organisation from fraud with verified digital identity from itsme^®  

A worldwide survey of 800 C-level executives from the utilities sector showed that 37% of utility providers cited optimising customer experience as a top driver for adopting enterprise software systems. The same survey showed that customer experience (CX) and optimisation emerged as leading focus areas for deploying emerging technologies, confirming that CX is a competitive necessity. 

The energy sector, however, faces mounting pressure to digitise customer-facing operations. Many providers still rely on manual processes to onboard customers or process contract changes, leaving room for human error and inefficiencies. The utilities sector, encompassing services like water, gas, and energy, is highlighted as having the lowest customer experience scores, with energy customers facing average wait times of 35 minutes, and up to 1 hour 25 minutes in extreme cases.  

Poor digital CX doesn’t just block new sign-ups; it frustrates existing users and erodes brand loyalty. Consumers expect to switch providers or update their account information online within minutes, with interactions that are simple, informative, and responsive. They also want the option to speak to a representative when needed, and seamless two-way communication throughout their entire customer journey. 

Digital identity for utilities platforms improve customer experience by simplifying onboarding and everyday access. New customers can quickly and securely sign up or switch providers online without lengthy paperwork. With automated KYC, onboarding no longer depends on office hours or phone queues, allowing digital operations to scale with confidence. This allows customer service teams to focus on more complex issues. Meanwhile, existing users benefit from fast, passwordless authentication in utilities to manage their accounts.

Utility provider Eneco illustrates this. In 2023, the Dutch-Belgian energy provider integrated itsme^® into its MyEneco portal to improve both security and usability. Previously, customers logged in with a username and password, offering little assurance that the person making changes was the legitimate account holder. Requests to change payment plans, addresses, or invoice preferences could take days to process and often require manual follow-up from customer service.

Using itsme^®, Eneco’s customers can now verify their identity in seconds and make changes directly, reducing administrative bottlenecks and freeing up support staff. The result is fewer service tickets, lower operational costs, and greater trust in the online experience. Multi factor authentication in utilities helps keep phishers and fraudsters at bay, reinforcing Eneco’s reputation for secure, customer-first digital service. 

Continue reading: Customer experience trends in utilities in 2026 

For many utility providers, verifying customer identities tends to be a frustratingly manual process. Customers are often asked to upload ID photos via email or to fill out long forms with basic information they've already shared elsewhere. In some cases, they’re even asked to send photos of their ID cards to customer service—a process not only inconvenient but also non-compliant with EU privacy regulations. 

This outdated approach creates friction and leads to abandoned sign-up flows, overwhelms customer service teams with identity-related queries, and slows operations. As expectations for digital convenience rise, fuelled by the commoditisation of the utilities sector and fierce competition, these inefficiencies are becoming increasingly intolerable. 

Digital transformation is, therefore, increasingly seen as a key lever for growth and operational efficiency in the energy and utilities sector. Between 2020 and 2021, the share of revenue allocated to digital initiatives in utilities rose from 30% to 38.4%. In parallel, more than a quarter (26%) of power and utilities providers have already integrated 5G technology into their strategic planning, signaling a clear shift toward advanced digital capabilities. 

Digital identity is a key enabler of digital transformation in the utilities sector: Relying on verified digital identity for onboarding replaces manual verification methods and repetitive form-filling with secure and automated KYC. This allows customers to onboard, access their accounts, and update personal details remotely without visiting service centres or sending sensitive documents by email.

On the login side, reusable ID coupled with multi-factor authentication in utilities makes secure self-service the default, reducing administrative overhead, strengthening utility compliance, and providing more intuitive digital experiences. 

Discover how digital ID can accelerate your digital transformation. Speak with an expert.  

In today’s commoditised energy market, price alone no longer secures customer loyalty. Many consumers switch providers each year in search of better deals and smoother digital experiences, often using comparison sites. In 2023 alone, over one million households switched providers in The Netherlands, expecting the entire process to take minimal administrative burden. Providers that can’t deliver that level of convenience risk losing both new as well as existing customers. 

At the same time, utilities providers operate on thin margins and face mounting pressure from fraud, manual errors, and inefficient processes. Friction during onboarding, such as form-fill mistakes, identity verification issues, and duplicate records, leads to high drop-off rates, increased support costs, and slower recovery in collections.

Digital identity platforms help utilities protect their margins through:  

• Clean, verified data: The identity of each customer is verified during onboarding, eliminating errors, fake names, and duplicate accounts. The result is better data quality, fewer costly mistakes, and less barriers to entry for new clients.  

• Lower operational costs: By automating KYC and enabling secure utility customer login to customer portals, digital identity reduces the number of support tickets and identity-related customer service calls. Fewer manual interventions mean lower overhead in support and collections teams. 

• Improved conversion rates: Frictionless and trusted onboarding drives higher completion rates. Customers are more likely to follow through when verification is fast, secure and familiar. 

• Better debt recovery: With one verified identity per account, energy providers can match unpaid bills to real individuals, making it harder for deliberate non-payers to commit fraud through fake accounts. 

• Less losses from data breaches: Many energy and utility providers still rely on outdated identity checks, like email verification or unsecured online forms. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach in the energy and utilities sector reached $4.83 million in 2025. Replacing these identification methods with verified digital identity help utilities reduce exposure to data breaches and regulatory penalties.

Protect your bottom line with the help of verified digital ID  

With regulations tightening across the EU, energy providers must modernise how they manage identity and personal data. PSD2, eIDAS 2.0, and GDPR are reshaping how companies verify users, store information, and conduct remote transactions. In this landscape, embedding a trusted, reusable digital identity into the customer journey is a fundamental compliance enabler.

Beyond its legal risks, non-compliance can erode customer trust. Consumers expect their data to be handled securely and transparently, and failure to meet these expectations damages reputation and brand loyalty. However, almost 90% of the world’s leading energy companies experienced a third-party data breach in 2023. This is especially costly in an industry where switching providers is as simple as filling out a comparison site form. 

Digital identity platforms offer a future-proof way to meet rising regulatory demands. For instance, itsme^® enables providers to verify identities instantly while reducing data handling risks by replacing insecure methods like email-based ID checks. Fully compliant with eIDAS, PSD2, and GDPR, these capabilities also simplify audits and reporting, helping avoid fines and reputational damage. 

Compliance is especially important as EU-wide regulations like eIDAS continue to expand in scope. The regulation mandates accepting Qualified Electronic IDs (QeIDs) across both public and private services, directly impacting how energy and utility providers onboard and interact with users.

National laws, such as Belgium’s National Register Law, further reinforce the need for compliant identity handling, making trusted digital identity solutions not just beneficial, but essential. 

Curious about the potential use cases of digital identity in your team?