A 12-month pilot of euro digital should start at second half of 2027, conducted in a controlled Eurosystem environment and involving real transactions, according to Piero Cipollone, member of the Executive Board of the ECB (European Central Bank).
The pilot project is expected to include a limited number of payment service providers and merchants. Eurosystem employees will also participate.
Among the main use cases to be tested are: person-to-person online transactions, using a pseudonym or access number; offline person-to-person transactions via NFC (near field communication), known in Brazil as contactless payment; person-to-company transactions, at the point of sale, via contact; and person-to-business transactions in e- or mobile commerce, with a pseudonym or access number.
are in progress, but the decision on issuing the digital euro will be considered by the Governing Council only after the legislation has been adopted.
Almost two-thirds of card transactions in the euro area are processed by international card schemes, says Cipollone. Furthermore, 15 out of 21 EU countries do not have a widely used domestic solution for digital payments in stores.
In this sense, the digital euro would offer an additional form of payment across the euro area, in different situations.
In Cipollone’s view,
“The urgency of preserving the resilience and autonomy of Europe’s critical infrastructures is clear”, he says and adds: “Ensuring strategic autonomy and resilience in daily payments is equally urgent”.
