ECB Seeks Online Merchants for Digital Euro Pilot

The digital euro is a proposed central bank digital currency intended to complement cash and give euro-area consumers access to public money in digital form. The project is also designed to bolster Europe’s payments resilience and strategic autonomy. Worldline previously built an offline person-to-person front-end prototype for the ECB in 2022, giving the payments group experience relevant to the next, more operational phase.

The ECB said on July 14, 2026, it had chosen 36 payment service providers from more than 50 applicants, with Worldline confirming its selection on July 15. The company will act as both an acquiring payment service provider and a technical service provider. The 12-month pilot is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027 and will test in-store NFC, e-commerce and mobile-commerce payments. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The European Central Bank is advancing its digital euro project as finance becomes increasingly digital and geopolitical conditions shift. The initiative aims to give the euro zone a safe, convenient official digital currency backed by sovereign credit. It could reduce Europe’s reliance on U.S. payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard while strengthening the region’s control over its future payments infrastructure, marking an important milestone in the global development of central bank digital currencies.

The ECB formally announced that it had selected 36 financial and payment service providers, including Deutsche Bank, Revolut and Stripe, for a pilot scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027. The move takes the digital euro formally from planning into practical testing. Participants will conduct trials covering technology, security and user experience as they make final preparations for a euro-zone digital payment tool that could serve hundreds of millions of people.