The European Central Bank (ECB) expects to announce technical standards for a potential digital euro by this summer. According to Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, this step will help payment providers and merchants prepare their systems. The ECB’s pilot program is set to run for 12 months starting in late 2027, with full technical readiness for a possible launch around 2029 pending legal approval from lawmakers.
Piero Cipollone informed European Union lawmakers that the ECB will announce the European standards for a digital euro this summer. This aims to let payment providers and merchants begin embedding the standards into terminals and applications ahead of time.
Cipollone stated that finalizing the rulebook would allow new hardware and apps to ship with the necessary rails already embedded. This would give European companies a head start once the EU’s expected 2026 legislation is in place.
The ECB’s digital euro pilot opened a call for licensed payment service providers in March. Cipollone said it will test person-to-person and point-of-sale payments in a controlled environment from the second half of 2027.
Earlier ECB analysis estimated a digital euro could cost EU banks between $4.3 billion to $6.5 billion over four years. Cipollone said those costs should be weighed against the long-term benefits of retaining more merchant fees and scaling European payment schemes.
“The goal is to provide pan-European rails that reduce dependence on international card schemes,” Cipollone told lawmakers. He reiterated that the digital euro is conceived as a public payments infrastructure for private intermediaries to offer wallets.
The digital euro is meant to complement cash and bank deposits rather than replace them. Accessibility features like voice commands are being built into the reference app design from the outset to ensure inclusivity.
Cipollone also highlighted the ECB’s Pontes project, which tests settling tokenized securities in central bank money. He pointed to the Appia roadmap for a tokenized European financial ecosystem in a separate speech on Monday.
