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ECB Selects 36 Firms for Digital Euro Pilot

The trial with banks and payment companies will test online, offline, and e-commerce payments, while the ECB also responds to the rise of stablecoins like USDT and USDC.

By Mike Hesp
• 2 min read
ECB Selects 36 Firms for Digital Euro Pilot

Key Takeaways

  • The ECB has chosen 36 banks and payment companies for a digital euro pilot, including Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Adyen, SumUp, UniCredit, and Worldline.
  • The 12-month trial begins in the second half of next year and will cover online, offline, in-store, and e-commerce payments.
  • The ECB views stablecoins as a threat to Europe’s monetary autonomy, while privacy concerns around CBDCs are still unresolved.

The European Central Bank has picked 36 banks and payment firms to take part in a digital euro pilot. Among the selected names are Deutsche Bank, Revolut, Adyen, SumUp, UniCredit, and Worldline. The trial is scheduled to start in the second half of next year and is intended to help pave the way for a possible launch in 2029.

Pilot With a Beta Version

The ECB chose the participants from a pool of 50 applications. Over the 12-month test period, the central bank will run a beta version of the digital euro across the ECB and the 19 national central banks in the eurozone. The pilot will cover person-to-person payments both online and offline, along with in-store transactions and e-commerce purchases.

The central bank said ECB and national central bank employees will also use the system as test users. A group of selected restaurants, cafeterias, and online merchants will join as well, giving the project a more realistic environment for payment testing. This is not yet a legal rollout, but it does closely track the framework laid out in the European Union’s draft legislation.

Pressure From Stablecoins

The ECB is pressing ahead even though the digital euro law is still unfinished. It sees the growth of private dollar-backed stablecoins, including Tether’s USDT and Circle Internet’s USDC, as a challenge to Europe’s monetary autonomy. That makes the pilot not only a technical milestone, but also a politically sensitive one.

At the same time, opposition to CBDCs has not gone away. Privacy advocates say transactions could be monitored and that a central bank could restrict access to the currency. In the United States, a law took effect last month that bars the Federal Reserve from creating or issuing a digital dollar through the end of 2030. That ban comes after a wider political fight over central bank money, including the recent CBDC ban under the housing law.

What This Means for Europe

For Europe’s crypto and payments crowd, the main signal is that the digital euro is moving out of the design phase and into real-world testing. Last month, the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs already backed its position on the proposal, calling for a safe, private, and free payment option for both online and offline use. In other words, the debate is no longer just about the technology itself, but about what role public money should play in a payments system that is becoming more digital by the day.

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