The European Central Bank has chosen 36 payment service providers to launch the European CBDC pilot in the second half of 2027
The European Central Bank has selected 36 payment service providers to participate in the digital euro pilot, according to the official announcement published on Tuesday 14 July. The central bank had received more than 50 applications after opening an expression-of-interest process in March 2026.
The list of selected PSPs includes fintechs such as Stripe and Revolut and traditional banking institutions including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and BPCE. The twelve-month pilot is scheduled for the second half of 2027 and will involve the ECB and the central banks of 19 euro-area member states, including Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.
Italy leads the ranking by number of selected participants, with seven entities: UniCredit, Poste Italiane, Nexi Payments, Banca Sella, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Isybank and Numia. Germany follows with five providers, while Portugal and Greece each count three. According to the ECB, the geographic distribution aims to build a broad testing environment, with selected providers able to offer services outside their home market.
Participants will take on differentiated roles during the trial: some will focus on user access to beta-version services, others on payment acceptance by merchants, and several entities will cover both functions. According to the ECB, the dual-role structure is designed to test the full cycle of a digital euro payment under conditions close to real-world operation.
Piero Cipollone, member of the ECB Executive Board and chair of the high-level task force on the digital euro, commented on the level of participation as a signal of private-sector interest in the project’s development. «We look forward to deeper engagement as we work and learn together with European payment service providers to develop a safe, efficient and inclusive digital euro», he said according to the ECB.
The European CBDC is moving toward the operational phase in a context where European authorities are multiplying financial monitoring instruments: on the fiscal surveillance of digital assets, Bull Bitcoin has already brought the DAC8 directive before a judge, opening the first legal challenge against the European mandatory reporting regime. The overlap of instruments – a programmable digital currency managed by a central bank and a generalised transaction-reporting obligation – configures a control architecture that the digital euro shares, in its logic, with other sovereign CBDC projects.
