ECB launches digital Euro pilot with 36 banks and industry partners

The European Central Bank (ECB) has chosen three dozen participants for a year-long digital euro pilot to test the new incarnation of the common currency.

The group includes banking and non-bank financial institutions, from Deutsche Bank to Revolut, and the trials will be facilitated by national monetary authorities.

Payment service providers to test digital euro functionalities

The ECB has selected 36 payment service providers (PSPs) to take part in the digital euro pilot, in order to check the technical functionality of its central bank digital currency (CBDC).

In a press release on Tuesday, shared on social media, the eurozone’s monetary policy regulator emphasized the “exercise is crucial” for testing operations and refining user experience.

The pilot is expected to begin in the second half of 2027 and continue for 12 months. It will support preparations for the potential launch of a digital version of the single currency.

The European Central Bank revealed it received more than 50 applications after issuing a call for interested parties in March of this year and evaluated them against multiple criteria.

It insisted the approved participants, from across the euro area, will ensure representative testing. The list includes both banks and non-bank service providers, of various sizes and business models.

Among them are giants such as Germany’s Deutsche Bank and Italy’s UniCredit, smaller banks from other countries, as well as Revolut, the popular neobank which operates in the region from Lithuania.

Quoted in the official announcement, one of the ECB’s top executives, Piero Cipollone, noted:

“The strong market interest in the pilot shows the private sector’s readiness to engage actively and quickly advance with the digital euro project to strengthen the European payments landscape.”

He added that the Frankfurt-headquartered authority hopes for even deeper engagement that will help develop a “secure, efficient and inclusive digital euro” in collaboration with payment companies.

Cipollone is a prominent member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board and chairs the High-Level Task Force on the digital euro.

Besides the ECB, the pilot will be hosted by 19 of the 21 national central banks in the area, as the participants may provide services in jurisdictions other than the one in which they are based.

The island nation of Malta as well as Bulgaria, which only recently adopted the euro, are the only two eurozone countries that will not be represented in the upcoming trials.

36 payment service providers from across the euro area have been selected for the digital euro pilot.

Starting in the second half of 2027, the 12-month exercise to test the digital euro’s features will take place at the ECB and 19 national central banks https://t.co/B88b6doEza pic.twitter.com/9MC1OJydRi

— European Central Bank (@ecb) July 14, 2026

Trials to involve beta digital euro and central bank staff

A beta version of the digital euro will be used in the testing. It will function like the original and use the same technology but will not have the status of a legal tender.

Eurosystem employees will be given access to a range of digital euro services, again in beta mode, including the options to set up their own accounts and spend or receive CBDC.

The pilot will also involve staff from participating national central banks as well as e-commerce platforms and merchants offering everyday services, such as cafeterias and restaurants.

Those who act as regular users will be able to make P2P (person-to-person) and P2B (person-to-business) payments through the tested digital euro system.

Transfers between individuals can be initiated either online or offline, while payments to retailers will be accepted at a physical point of sale or through mobile devices.

Officials at the ECB believe that next year’s pilot will help fine-tune the design of the digital currency and improve the experience of users, the press release further revealed.

The European CBDC has been in the making for several years now. It comes to reduce dependence on U.S. payment systems and curb the spread of dollar-pegged stablecoins, among other stated goals.

The project cleared a key hurdle last month, as reported by Cryptopolitan, when it got the approval of the European Parliament’s important Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON).

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