ECB Digital Euro Trial Enlists Firms from Revolut to UniCredit

Revolut Bank UAB, UniCredit SpA and Deutsche Bank AG are among 36 payment service providers that will participate in a digital euro trial, the European Central Bank said on Tuesday.

The firms ranging from traditional banks to transaction platforms were selected out of more than 50 applicants to join a 12-month pilot phase starting in the second half of 2027. The companies involved come from from 16 out of the 21 euro member states.

“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,” ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, chair of the digital euro task force, said in a press release.

The pilot will involve staff from the ECB and all of the region’s national central banks apart from Malta and Bulgaria. The plan is to use e-commerce merchants and vendors such as cafeterias and restaurants on the premises of those institutions.

They will use a beta version of the digital euro that is functionally and technically close to the version foreseen in draft legislation. It won’t have legal tender status however.

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The trial is the next step in Europe’s push to become more independent from US firms Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc., which handle the vast majority of credit and debit card payments across the continent, and to offer an alternative to dollar-denominated stablecoins.

First envisaged in 2020, possible issuance is planned for 2029. In June, European Union lawmakers cleared the way for talks on the legal framework that will underpin the digital euro.