ECB digital euro pilot with 36 payment providers

The digital euro pilot is a 12-month test of a digital euro in real payments, run by the European Central Bank (ECB) (external site) with 36 selected payment service providers. A payment service provider is a bank or another licensed firm that holds accounts and executes payments for its clients.

The digital euro itself is still a legislative proposal. The Commission proposal (external site) describes it as a new form of central bank money, available to the public alongside euro banknotes and coins.

Until now, the digital euro existed as a draft law, as design work and as technical specifications. In the pilot, a beta version carries real payments. The ECB (external site) states that this beta version is close to the draft legislation in function and technology, but has no legal tender status, the status that obliges a payee to accept money in payment.

Providers take one of two roles. Distributing providers give staff of the participating central banks access to beta digital euro services; acquiring providers serve merchants so that they can accept beta payments; some providers do both (ECB (external site)).

As an example of the flow, a payment starts in the beta wallet of a staff member held at a distributing provider and reaches a merchant through an acquiring provider. Individual users are staff of participating Eurosystem central banks who are, or become, customers of a pilot provider (pilot FAQ (external site)).

Know Your Customer (KYC) checks stay with the provider. The ECB specifications state that the existing KYC process applies before any business relationship and is not modified for the beta digital euro (ECB (external site)).

The pilot concerns banks and payment institutions selected as distributing or acquiring providers, and the merchants they serve (ECB (external site)). The roles most directly concerned:

• Payments Operations Analyst: executes and reconciles beta digital euro payments next to existing payment flows.
• KYC Analyst: onboards central bank staff as pilot users under the provider's existing checks.
• Payments Partnerships Manager (Acquiring & Gateways): connects merchants and their payment gateways to beta payment acceptance.
• Product Owner (Banking): turns the ECB frontend specifications into wallet features and test cases.
• Project Manager (Banking): plans the connection to the ECB platform, user testing and certification.

The ECB opened the call for providers on 5 March 2026 and announced the 36 selected providers on 14 July 2026, chosen from more than 50 applications (ECB (external site)). A call for online and mobile merchants opened on 15 September 2026 (ECB (external site)).

A preparation phase from the third quarter of 2026 covers development, connection to the digital euro service platform, user testing and certification. The operational phase starts in the second half of 2027 and lasts 12 months, with a possible extension of up to six months (pilot FAQ (external site)).

Both dates in this entry are expected. The ECB aims to be ready for a possible first issuance in 2029, assuming the regulation is adopted in 2026 (ECB (external site)). The decision to issue comes only after the regulation is adopted (ECB (external site)).

The Commission proposed the digital euro regulation on 28 June 2023, together with a proposal on the legal tender of euro cash (EUR-Lex (external site)). The European Parliament adopted its negotiating mandate on 9 July 2026 (Banca d'Italia (external site)).

The Eurosystem, the ECB and the national central banks of the euro area, closed a preparation phase on the design in October 2025 (ECB (external site)). It then moved to the next phase of the project, which includes this pilot (ECB (external site)).