eID verification of Ultimate Beneficial Owners — how we keep Norwegian company formation trustworthy

Foundations of trustWhy a national eID is the right way to verify a Ultimate Beneficial Owner

Registering a Norwegian company — whether a NUF (Norwegian-registered foreign branch, our core product), an AS (Aksjeselskap), an ENK or an ANS — is a legally binding act. The directors we appoint, the share register we maintain and, for an AS, the share capital of NOK 30 000 we transfer in your name all rely on the Brønnøysund Register Centre trusting that you really are the person we say you are. The Norwegian Money Laundering Act of 2018 (Hvitvaskingsloven) § 12, the EU Anti-Money Laundering directives (AMLD 5 and AMLD 6) and the upcoming EU AML Regulation (AMLR) all require us as a professional intermediary to perform enhanced due diligence on every Ultimate Beneficial Owner.

A scanned passport is no longer enough. National eIDs solve that with a chain of trust that goes all the way to a public authority:

• eIDAS assurance level — every eID we accept is at level Substantial or High, meaning the issuing scheme is notified to the European Commission and recognised across the EU/EEA.
• Non-repudiation — the authentication produces a signed token. You cannot later claim someone else logged in.
• Tamper-resistant — name, date of birth and national identifier come straight from the eID issuer (banks, public registries), not from a document we have to inspect by eye.
• Cross-border by design — the eIDAS framework makes a Danish MitID, a Swedish BankID and an Estonian Smart-ID legally equivalent for our KYC purposes.

Our identity providerIdura Verify — the Nordic eID broker we trust

We do not build national eID integrations from scratch. We rely on Idura Verify, a Copenhagen-based trust-service broker formerly known as Criipto. Idura ApS (CVR 35142207, Gammel Kongevej 3E, 1610 København V) is a certified MitID broker, an approved BankID partner in Norway and Sweden, a Finnish Trust Network broker and a connected AusweisApp service provider.

Choosing Idura Verify means:

• One legal framework, five eIDs. A single data-processing agreement covers MitID, BankID NO, BankID SE, FTN and AusweisApp.
• Verified production setups. Idura’s production environment for each eID has been activated by the issuing scheme (Nets, BankID AB, BankID NO, Suomi.fi, Bundesdruckerei) — Intermediary AS is therefore a properly accredited downstream service.
• eIDAS-aligned tokens. Every authentication returns a JWT signed by Idura that we validate server-side before we open a session.
• GDPR-compliant data flow. All data is processed inside the EU/EEA; no transfer of personal data outside the EU is needed for the eID step.
• Operational resilience. Idura publishes a public status page at status.idura.app and runs redundant infrastructure across two EU regions.

We use only the Verify product line — that is, the eID-authentication API. We do not use Idura’s signing or video-identification add-ons today; for electronic signatures of articles of association we rely on Brønnøysund’s own Altinn flow.

eID #1Danish MitID — for founders resident in Denmark

Why this matters for your Norwegian filing. When you log in with MitID, we receive a token that the Norwegian Register Centre would itself accept under the eIDAS regulation. This means we can sign declarations on your behalf without having you travel to Norway. Danish founders also unlock our Establishing a Danish-owned company in Norway guided flow with the right tax and VAT defaults already populated.

eID #2Norwegian BankID — used by our state-authorised Norwegian partners

eID #3Swedish BankID — for Swedish residents expanding into Norway

Sweden is the largest source of foreign companies registered in Norway. Of all foreign-registered branches (NUFs) in Norway, Swedish parents make up the biggest cohort. We optimise the Swedish onboarding flow to mirror the structure used in bolagsverket.se — same field order, same labelling — so you finish in a few minutes.

eID #4German Personalausweis — verified through AusweisApp

Why we accept AusweisApp. Germany is the fourth-largest source of NUFs in Norway today, and the trend is accelerating with the EU Digital Identity Wallet initiative. By accepting the German eID at level High, Intermediary AS is positioned for the EUDI Wallet rollout coming in 2026–2027 — your AusweisApp credential will keep working without any changes from your side.

eID #5Finnish Trust Network — the umbrella for Finnish bank eIDs and Mobiilivarmenne

Bonus: Åland Islands and bilingual support. The Ålandsbanken FTN credential includes Swedish-language fields, so Åland founders register in Norwegian or English without translation friction.

What happens behind the scenesThe four-step verification process at registercompany.no

After step 4 your identity is verified. What happens next — first your choice of Norwegian organisation form (our core offering is the NUF Norwegian-registered foreign branch, with AS, ENK and ANS also available), then pre-filling the founder section, drafting articles, share-capital transfer where relevant and the Brønnøysund filing — is the registration journey itself and is covered on the home page, not here.

Data, retention and your rightsWhat we keep — and what we delete

We minimise data by design. After a successful eID login, the only personal data we store is what we are legally required to keep under the Norwegian Money Laundering Act § 30 (record-keeping) and the Bookkeeping Act § 13:

• Your verified full legal name
• Date of birth
• National identifier where the eID releases it (Swedish personnummer, Finnish henkilötunnus, German Personalausweis number)
• The eIDAS Level of Assurance reported by the eID
• A timestamp and the name of the eID broker (Idura)

We do not store: your PIN, your biometric data, your bank credentials, your MitID/BankID code generator state, or any session cookies issued by the eID issuer.

Retention: 10 years after the customer relationship ends (Money Laundering Act § 30 second paragraph). After that we delete or anonymise. You have the right to access, rectify and (subject to AML constraints) request erasure of your data — write to contact@intermediary.no.

Our cookie and data-handling overview is at registercompany.no/Cookie and our data-processing agreement with Idura is available on request.

Edge casesIf you do not have a Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, German or Finnish eID

The five eIDs above cover roughly 95 % of cross-border founders coming into Norway today. If you live elsewhere in the EU/EEA or outside the EU, you have three options:

• Use an EEA eID that we will add next. We are planning to enable Estonian Smart-ID/Mobiil-ID, Latvian eParaksts, Lithuanian m.parašas, Belgian eID and Dutch iDIN — all via Idura. Subscribe to our Insights to be notified.
• Manual KYC with a certified passport copy. We perform a video identification call, you provide a notarised copy of your passport plus proof of address (utility bill, bank statement, or government letter no older than three months).
• Power of attorney to an EU/EEA representative. If you appoint a Norwegian or EU representative as your contact person, we verify the representative with eID and you sign a notarised power of attorney.

Contact contact@intermediary.no and we will set up a manual KYC slot within one working day.