Grant a mandate for transactions as a person

In Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, you can give a person, company, association or other organisation of your choice the right to handle your matters on your behalf.

More information on acting on behalf of another person

A person who is of age, legally competent and has a Finnish personal identity code and can identify themselves in the service with Finnish means of electronic identification can authorise someone else to handle matters specified in the mandate on their behalf.

The guardians of a minor can together authorise each other or a person of their choice to handle the minor's matters on their own.

Another person, company, or organisation may also ask you for a mandate for transactions, in which case you grant the mandate by approving a mandate request.

When you want to grant a mandate in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations:

Go to Suomi.fi e-Authorizations.
Identify yourself with your personal banking IDs, mobile certificate or certificate card. Instructions for identification using different identification tokens
Select Personal mandates as the service role.
Select Grant mandates.

There are four stages to granting a mandate for transactions

Step 1: Choice of parties

When you grant a mandate, you act as the assignor. Your details will automatically be searched for in the Population Information System.

If you wish, you can grant a mandate to either multiple persons or multiple companies, associations and other organisations at once. The granted mandate is the same for everyone: you are the assignor, all the assignees can act in the same matters and the mandate is valid for the same period of time.

When you grant a mandate

to a person, who has a Finnish personal identity code, you will need their last name, first name or preferred first name and personal identity code.
to a company or organisation registered in Finland, you will need the name or business ID of the company or organisation.

The person being granted the mandate may not be under 18 or under guardianship. When you add the assignee’s information, the Suomi.fi e-Authorizations checks that the name and personal identity code match and that the assignee is alive.

You can also grant a mandate to a company that is not registered in Finland, if at least one mandate has previously been registered for the company using the Mandate service provided by officials. To grant a mandate, you will need the VAT ID of the EU country or the national business ID of the country with which the previous mandate is registered. Please note that in the authorisation register the country code of the country of registration has been added to the start of the national business ID. Instructions for registering a mandate can be found on the Authorisation with an application page.

Step 2: Choice of mandate themes

Familiarise yourself with the mandate themes before granting any mandates. Check also in the instructions of each service you are using to see which mandate themes are in use in them.

When granting a mandate, select the mandate theme you wish from the list in Suomi.fi. You will then only see the mandate themes that are available for private persons.

You can browse the list or search for mandate themes using search words based on a name, description or theme category. Check from the description of the mandate theme what an assignee can do on your behalf with each mandate.

You can select numerous mandate themes at one time. You will have to select at least one mandate theme before you can go on.

If the mandate theme you have selected uses a mandate specifier, you can, if necessary and before moving on, restrict or target the mandate to apply to certain elements or subjects only. Only use the specifier when you have received more detailed instructions on the e-service in which the mandate is to be used. The use of a specifier is not compulsory, and you may grant a mandate without one.

Step 3: Specifying the period of validity

A mandate must always have a start and end date.

You can specify a mandate’s period of validity by giving the relevant dates or you can select one that lasts 1, 5, 15, 20 or 25 years. The shortest period of validity for a mandate is one day and the longest is 25 years.

Step 4: Mandate validation

You will receive a notification, if the mandates to be granted overlap with previously granted mandates or if you cannot grant a mandate to the person you have selected. You can remove these mandates and continue with the validation of other mandates.

Check mandate details

You are the assignor.
The assignee is a person, company or organisation that can act on your behalf.
The mandate themes you have selected and the period of validity of the mandate are correct.

If you wish to change the details before the mandate is validated, you can go back over these steps.

The mandate you have granted becomes valid as from its start date when you have validated it.

In Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, the guardians of an underage child may together grant one or more persons a mandate to handle the child’s matters if:

all of the guardians have a Finnish personal identity code
the child has not been issued a non-disclosure order
the child is not under guardianship.

In Suomi.fi e-Authorizations, granting a mandate can be initiated by any of the child’s guardians entered in the population register. If there is only one guardian, the guardian can grant this mandate on their own.

Do the following:

Go to Suomi.fi e-Authorizations.
Identify yourself with your personal banking IDs, mobile certificate, certificate card or the Finnish Authenticator application. Instructions for identification using different identification tokens
Select Another person’s mandates as the service role and the underage dependant whose matters the mandate grants the right to handle.
Select Grant mandates.
Enter the person or persons as assignees who you want to grant the mandate to.
Specify the mandate categories and the mandate’s period of validity.
Validate the mandate on your part.

The mandate is valid only after all guardians have validated it for their part. When you identify yourself into Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and select Another person's mandates as the service role, you can see the mandates that are waiting to be validated on the To be validated by you page. On the To be validated by others page you can see the mandates that you have already validated, but that are still waiting to be validated by other guardians.

Please note that other validators will not be notified that a mandate is awaiting validation. The initiator must notify them separately. Mandates to be validated will be listed in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations for a period of six months after which they will be removed.

If necessary, a mandate granted together can be invalidated by any of the guardians alone.

You can grant several mandates of the same type at the same time. There are four options:

You can add several assignees to a mandate if you grant everyone a similar mandate.
On the different pages, you can select multiple parties from the list and then grant new mandates to those selected.
You can place parties and mandate themes concerning previous mandates from different pages into the selection basket, and then move on to grant new mandates based on your selections.

Using the selection basket

You can place either parties or individual mandate themes (or both) from different pages into the selection basket. You can then grant new mandates with the information you have selected.

To use the selection sasket:

On any page, open Search and filters.
Begin use of the selection basket.
Set the filter for the list so that you can see the parties or mandates you want on the list.
Select the desired parties or mandates from the list and place them in the selection basket.
Go to another page to select additional parties or mandates and place them in the selection basket.
When the selection basket contains the information you want, go to grant new mandates with this information.

You will see the mandates for transactions you have granted on the Granted mandates page when you have selected Personal mandates as the service role. When you select an assignee, you will see a list of all the mandates granted to this assignee. Select a single mandate to see its details.

If you have a large number of granted mandates, you can:

search for mandates granted to a specific person, company or organisation by name or identifier
search for mandates granted for certain mandate themes or with certain specifier
limit the list based on the period of validity of the mandates.

Mandate status data:

Valid: The assignee can act on behalf of the assignor.
Not valid yet: The assignee can act on behalf of the assignor from the start date of the mandate.
Invalid: The assignee cannot act on behalf of the assignor because some of the details of the mandate have changed. Invalidate the invalid mandate and grant a new mandate if necessary.
The mandate theme is not in use: The assignee may no longer be able to act on behalf of the assignor because the mandate theme used in the mandate is no longer used for new mandates. Check whether the mandate theme that is no longer in use can be used for acting on behalf of someone in the e-service you need. Grant a new mandate if necessary.

On the Expired mandates page, you will see the mandates whose period of validity has expired or those which have been invalidated prior to their expiration.

The mandates for transactions that you have granted in Suomi.fi e-Authorizations are valid for a specific length of time when they are granted. You can also invalidate a mandate prior to its expiration.

How to invalidate a mandate:

Select one or more assignees on the Granted mandates page. If you select one, you will see a list of all the mandates this assignee has. If you select more than one, you will see all the mandates of all selected assignees.
Select one or more mandates from the list for invalidation.
Invalidate the mandates you have selected.

If you want to invalidate a large number of different mandates at one time, begin use of the selection basket.

For example, you can use the selection basket to invalidate at once all the mandates you have given to a specific person and the mandates you have received from them:

On the Granted mandates page, open Search and filters.
Begin use of the selection basket.
Select on the list the person whose mandates you want to invalidate. You can filter the list with different search terms.
Place the party in the selection basket. The selection will place in the basket all valid mandates you have granted and received and any sent or received mandate requests where that person is an assignor or an assignee.
Go to invalidate mandates and check your selections.
As you move forward, go to the normal mandate invalidation view, where you can make changes to your selections.
Finally, invalidate the mandates.

You will see the invalidated mandates on the Expired Mandates page. The assignee will not be informed that the mandate has been invalidated, and you must notify them of the matter where necessary.