Digital Euro: The ECB invites merchants to test payments from 2027

The European Central Bank is moving to traders. Since September 15, it has been accepting applications from e-commerce and mobile commerce companies to test the digital euro. The pilot will begin in the second half of 2027 and last 12 months. It will bring together traders, banks, payment providers and members of the Eurosystem. A possible issuance remains targeted for 2029, provided that the European legislative framework is adopted.

The ECB is now looking for traders

The project reached its first stage in July. The ECB then selected 36 payment service providers, after receiving more than 50 applications. Banks and non-bank players have since been preparing the infrastructure necessary for the pilot. Tremplin.io detailed this selection in its article on the 36 partners chosen to test the digital euro.

Traders are now missing. The ECB is targeting companies that sell online or via mobile applications in the euro zone. Applicants have until October 27 at 5 p.m. CET to submit their application. An information meeting is planned for October 6.

Selected businesses will need to accept payments with the beta version of the digital euro. They will work with one of the service providers already selected by the Eurosystem. The ECB will look in particular their presence on the markettheir operational capacity and their ability to integrate the new means of payment.

The test will therefore no longer be limited to checking code. A purchase will be made. A trader will have to receive it. A refund may follow. And the teams will be able to look at where things are blocking.

Twelve months to pay, transfer and repay

The pilot must reproduce as faithfully as possible the uses envisaged for a future digital euro. In-store payments, remote purchases, transfers between individuals: several scenarios are planned. The 36 service providers, selected traders as well as employees of the ECB and 19 national central banks will participate in the exercise.

The currency used will be beta. In its FAQ, the ECB even specifies that the online version used during the pilot will be legally considered as cash money within the current framework of payment services. It will not constitute a coin, a note, or an account held directly with the ECB.

This matters because 2027 is not the launch date of the digital euro. This is a testing year. The schedule had already been known for several months. Tremplin.io notably presented the pilot planned for 2027 and its different stages.

Above all, the ECB wants to recover data that a laboratory does not easily provide: time needed to make a payment, integration problems, user journey, processing of transactions and feedback from merchants.

Stablecoins remain behind the European calendar

The digital euro is not a crypto. It is a central bank currency. However, the comparison with private digital assets comes up regularly in European discourse.

In May, Christine Lagarde recalled that the global stablecoin market exceeded 300 billion dollars, compared to less than 10 billion six years previously. The vast majority is denominated in dollars and almost 90% of the market is controlled by Tether and Circle, according to figures cited by the president of the ECB.

Dependence on foreign infrastructure also concerns Frankfurt. Nearly two-thirds of card transactions in the euro zone go through non-EU companies, according to the ECB.

This debate has accompanied the digital euro for several years. Tremplin.io had already devoted an article to the relationship between stablecoins and digital euro in the ECB’s strategy. For 2029, however, nothing is automatic. The ECB indicates that it wants to be technically ready for a first issue that year, if the European regulation is adopted. The decision to actually issue the digital euro will come next. Before that, we will have to see how the beta version behaves in front of a checkout, an online shopping cart and a customer who simply wants to pay.