BankID for Swedbank, Sparbanken & ICA bank - a guide

General
1

After trying now and then for about six months to install a certificate for the Swedish BankID, I finally succeeded a few days ago. I thought that maybe more people are experiencing the same problems I had, so here is a short guide, how I did it. This guide is for BankID when you have Swedbank or Sparbanken.

You have two options

  1. Installing a new BankID certificate on SailfishOS (SFOS), when you don’t have a certificate on an previous phone.

  2. Installing a new BankIDID certificate using an old phone with existing BankID certificate.

Option 1 - new certificate

You need to go to your bank office and get help, since the BankID application cannot access the NFC chip in the phone with SFOS.

Option 2 - new certificate using an existing phone with a working BankID

On the old phone make sure that you have the app BankID working with a valid certificate, and the appropriate bank app for your bank Swedbank or a Sparbank.

On the new phone with SFOS:

  • install the app BankID if you haven’t done that before,
  • install the appropriate bank app that you use like Swedbank or Sparbanken.
  • go to settings (Inställningar),
  • go to system (System),
  • scroll down to positioning (Platstjänster),
  • select high precision positioning (Hög precisionspositionering). This is crucial! Otherwise you will not be able to get a new certificate for your new phone with SFOS, but instead BankID will display an error message, saying that positioning is not supported on your phone.

On your old phone

  • start the bank application and log in,
  • find the profile settings (Profile),
  • under the headline services (Tjänster), you will find the option for mobile bank id (Mobilt BankID), select this,
  • select that you want a new BankID (Beställ eller förnya Mobilt BankID),
  • once there select the option to another unit (Till annan enhet),
  • follow the instructions and then a QR code will appear.

Switch to your SFOS phone

  • start the BankID app,
  • scan the QR code that is displayed on your old phone,

Switch back to old phone

  • enter your PIN code and follow instructions.

A new Mobile BankID certificate should now have been installed on your SFOS phone. Test it by logging into your bank with your banking app. Somewhere there you’ll also find the option to check your bank id certificate.

When all is done, you will have working BankID with certificate on both your old and new phone.

Worth noting

Transferring the BankID certificate from one phone to another

It is not possible to move your old certificate from your old phone to your SFOS phone. The information given by BankID is that this is possible, but it’s not possible with Swedbank and Sparbanken

Creating a new BankID certificate with national ID

Installing a new BankID certificate on the SFOS phone is not possible, since the BankID app needs access to the NFC chip to scan the RFID chip, which is not supported at the moment. The information given by Swedbank and Sparbankernas that this is possible by taking a photo of your identification, but that is not the case BankID does not rely on photos, only NFC collected information from your ID. For the same reason using the security code generator is not a viable option.

Summary

If you have an old phone, install a BankID there, then use that phone to install a new BankID on your SFOS phone.

19 Likes
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Holy f*ck it worked!!! I could kiss you old man! Ive been living without bankid for over half a year, waiting for this moment it all comes together with the AAS bluetooth support. Im finally a citizen again!

Thanks a ton!

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Thank you for your positive reply! I am really glad that the instructions were useful to someone.

I have noticed on my Xperia 10 II, that it doesn’t work as smoothly as on my iPhone. Sometimes it’s slow and sometimes it hangs and need a restart. Like with many applications on iOS in the beginning years ago. But it works well most of the time.

I also have Freja eID on SFOS and it works like a charm, and I use it every day in my work.

2 Likes
4

I am not Swedish, but this is so cool, so I’m here just to show appreciation, maybe someone with the correct rights could make this guide a Wiki page.

When I receive my J2 I am planning to achieve the same with some Italian public administration apps, from what I understand, the NFC does not really work with AAS yet, which could be an issue, but I hope to see NFC working soon :slight_smile:

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Im very happy you took your time to make a clear, easy to follow guide and I want you to know Im very thankful for it! It makes all the difference to not be treated like second class citizen or having to do workarounds when I cant use swish or my bank witout being home

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Thank you for your support. Good luck with your own project.

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7

It worked with ICA Banken too; Bluetooth and location services had to be on when I set up a new one for Jolla, and I got a BankID valid for 5 years.

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8

Great! I have updated the topic headline now because of this.

9

Nordea is also working. I had also activated bluetooth passthrough to android on the jolla phone, where i setup the new bank id. This is missing in the steps above.

Additional clarification: the phone I have moved the bankid from, was a plain android device. So the transfer happened from Android to Sailfish phone.

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This does not work with Skandiabanken. At the last step when old phone is supposed to show the qr-code, it instantly throws an error message covering the qr-code which says “Activation failed due too old Bluetooth. Please try with another device.”
Old phone Sony 10 iii running 5.1.0.11.
I’ve tried both sending incoming pairing requests to AppSupport activated, and de-activated to no avail. The rest according to the suggestions above.
Now going old school instead sending them a piece of paper like before and have them turn of the requirement of digitally id confirmation.

2 Likes
11

Has anyone tested with Handelsbanken?

12

I hit a fun edge case setting up BankID on my 2026 Jolla. The process kept failing, complaining about Bluetooth despite Android BT support being installed.

The reason was that I had not restarted since installing Android BT support, and the reason for that was that I had opted to have it installed for me during initial setup - at which point I had no chance to see the clear message stating a restart is needed before the support starts working :blush:.

Hopefully this can save someone else a few minutes of confusion, I imagine I won’t be the only one trying to set up BankID relatively soon after getting a new phone.

1 Like
13

ICA Banken is not working for me, on my Jolla when I scan the QR code through the BankId app downloaded from Aurora Store I get the error

”Din andra enhet hittas inte
Se till att din andra enhet har Bluetooth på och att enheterna är nära varandra”

Both have Bluetooth on and are close to each other

14

Maybe that is the issue for me, how do I install Android BT Support on my Jolla?

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I have the app AppSupport Bluetooth (beta) from Jolla from the Jolla Store installed and have restarted several times so that is not the issue

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I had also activated to forward connecting requests to AAS during the setup of BankID. You find the setting under Settings - Bluetooth - Send pairing requests to Android (Skicka inkommande parkopplingsförfrågningar till AppSupport).

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ok thanks for the tip, that was not enabled for me, will order a new BankID now and try again

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Unfortunately it did not work, maybe the issue is that my old device is a Apple iPhone, I don’t know. I also tried pairing my iPhone with my Jolla over Bluetooth and it worked. I will have to call ICA Banken and order an activation code instead

19

As I recall, you need to download the ICA app, order BankID through it, and use your old mobile’s BankID to log in. Also, location services must be enabled on both phones.

1 Like
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The gps have to be on high precision.

1 Like