ECB: “Digital euro from 2029, provided EU institutions agree in 2026”

Brussels – “We aim to be ready for a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029.” The chair of the high-level task force on the digital euro and member of the ECB’s Executive Board, Piero Cipollone, breaks the deadlock. The pan-European payment system to be used within the single market as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard has a timetable and a team working to make it happen. Now, however, it is up to the politicians. The possibility of having a digital euro in three years’ time is based “on a working assumption that the EU co-legislators will adopt the Regulation on the
establishment of the digital euro in the course of 2026”, he said at the ABI meeting.

 The EU Council has its own negotiating position on the file, and Parliament has just decided to start negotiations and the legislative process. Expectations are now that the House will define its negotiating position by May, so that inter-institutional negotiations can be concluded by the end of the year and the regulation approved. The European Central Bank is moving forward on this basis and, according to its roadmap, plans to launch a one-year “pilot exercise and initial transactions in mid-2027,” conducted “in a controlled Eurosystem environment,” thus managed by the European Central Bank.

Acting swiftly to meet deadlines, objectives, and, above all, to achieve those competitiveness goals that are now central to the twelve-star agenda. Speaking to the audience of the Italian Banking Association, Cipollone reminded that payment service providers (PSPs) such as banks and the Italian Post Office, in the case of Italy, would save on operating costs because the digital euro “creates a European acceptance infrastructure” with lower commission and management costs, Cipollone emphasises, while providing standards open to private solutions.​

 The European Central Bank is therefore moving forward with the digital euro project, and is doing so by also launching a brand new unpaid collaboration with the ONCE Foundation for the cooperation and social inclusion of people with disabilities, aimed at promoting, developing, and ensuring that the future digital euro app is easily accessible to everyone, including the elderly, and people with disabilities or limited digital skills. In Frankfurt, in short, they are getting serious: the all-European payment circuit alternative to Visa and Mastercard wants to be truly for all Europeans.

 “Accessibility and inclusion are not optional features, but core digital euro design principles,” Cipollone, member of the ECB’s Executive Board and chair of the high-level task force on the digital euro, said. “By working with organisations such as the ONCE Foundation, we are helping to ensure that the digital euro empowers every citizen in the digital age, leaving no one behind,” he added.

In this further step towards the creation of a digital euro, “we will incorporate experts in accessibility and user experience who are persons with disabilities into the project team, thereby combining technical knowledge with lived experience,” said Jesús Hernández Galán, Director of Accessibility and Innovation at the ONCE Foundation.