ECB names 36 firms including Stripe and Revolut for digital euro pilot

The European Central Bank has selected 36 payment service providers to run the first pilot of a digital euro, a 12-month trial scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027. The group, drawn from more than 50 applicants across 16 euro area states, includes established lenders like Deutsche Bank and UniCredit alongside fintech challengers such as Revolut, Stripe and Adyen. Italy supplies the most participants with seven, followed by Germany with five.

Participants will be split into distributing providers, which will issue beta digital euro accounts, and acquiring providers, which will sign up merchants to accept them. Testing will be confined to the ECB and 19 national central banks, with staff acting as users and institutional cafeterias or e-commerce sites serving as merchants. Providers must bear their own costs and are barred from charging pilot users any fees, a structure that favours larger institutions capable of absorbing the upfront build and certification expenses.

The oversized roster of 36 firms—well above the ECB's own estimate of 10 to 30—signals that the industry is eager to secure a foothold in a potential new payments architecture. “The 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,” said Piero Cipollone, the ECB executive board member chairing the task force. The deliberate mix of incumbents and challengers reflects a market where app-based firms have captured most payment growth over the past decade.

The trial will test four specific use cases: online and offline person-to-person transfers, tap-to-pay at point-of-sale terminals, and online commerce. The beta version will be functionally close to draft legislation but will carry no legal tender status, meaning no consumer outside the test will use it. The strategic motivation remains curbing the bloc's dependence on US-based card networks and platforms, a vulnerability highlighted by recent consolidation moves like Mastercard's $1.8bn stablecoin purchase.

Despite the technical progress, the project's timeline now hinges on legislators in Brussels rather than bankers in Frankfurt. The central bank has stated it will not decide whether to actually issue the currency until the digital euro regulation is adopted, with legislation needed this year to keep a possible 2029 first issuance on track. A detailed list of exactly which countries each provider will operate in during the pilot is expected later this year.