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2026-03-30 06:00
In the second half of 2027, the pilot of the digital euro will start. The tests will last 12 months and will involve selected payment service providers, merchants and, as payers, employees of euro area central banks. There will be no American technology giants behind the scenes.
In October 2025, the first phase of work on the digital equivalent of central bank money (CBDC) in the euro area was completed. The basics of e-euro operation took some concrete shape at that time. Although there are still many unknowns, the European Central Bank is definitely ahead. The goal is to prepare the ground for the debut of the new form of money on the market in 2029, and before that happens – a pilot in the “real world”. The schedule is tight.
What does the digital euro testing calendar look like?
On March 5, the ECB published an invitation to participate in the pilot for payment service providers (PSPs) and extensive documentation. Those interested have time to apply until mid-May, and contracts with selected entities are planned to be signed in Q3 2026.
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In the fourth quarter, programming work and the process of onboarding PSP to the test environment will begin. At the turn of the first and second quarter of 2027, user tests will start, and in the third quarter of 2027, onboarding to the production environment and implementation of the first business users (acceptors).
The operational phase of the pilot is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2027. The experiment will last 12 months and will include onboarding of individual users and the actual launch of payment services in the production environment. The testers-payers are to be employees of euro zone central banks.
The pilot will end in the fourth quarter of 2028. If all goes according to the ECB's plan, in 2029, the European central bank digital money will hit the prepared ground. Already at the very beginning, at least some of the important players on the local payment market are to be ready to accept the new form of money. And thanks the ongoing parallel process of “closing” the gaps in the project's foundations.
Standards and legal basis later this year
In the meantime, the ECB is planning some important moves. They are scheduled to see the light of day in the summer technical standards and rulebook of the digital euro. As Piero Cipollone from the Governing Council of the European Central Bank declares, this will give payment market participants time to prepare for the launch of CBDC. This includes: o installing appropriate components in payment terminals delivered to retail outlets.
Later this year the legal foundations of the e-euro are to be resolved. The European Central Bank emphasizes at every opportunity that the decision on the possible issuance of a new form of money will be made only when the CBDC regulatory framework is established. After a short stalemate in parliament, the path to this goal seems clear. As reported by Euronews, a compromise was reached, and on March 25, parliamentarians who opted to limit the project only to offline payments decided to change their mind. The final vote on the package is expected to take place before the holidays.
European infrastructure for a European CBDC
The tests, conducted in a closed group, are intended to check how the infrastructure of the digital euro works. In October last year, entities were selected that will build the technological base of the European CBDC. American IT suppliers were not allowed to come to the table. The system responsible for handling payment transactions will be handled by Senacor, and subcontractors providing cloud services will be OVH and Scaleway.
The decision to allow only European suppliers to participate in the proceedings is in line with one of the main ideas of the digital euro project – strengthening Europe's technological sovereignty. Let us recall that the ECB strongly emphasized the continent's dependence on the services of payment organizations from overseas. The situation is similar in the cloud services market. Amazon, Microsoft and Google together have a 70 percent share, according to Synergy Research data.
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