ECB Adopts Payments Standards to Clear Path for Digital Euro Launch

The European Central Bank (ECB) has signed agreements with three European standard setters to facilitate digital euro payments, if the digital euro regulation gets adopted by European Union (EU) co-legislators.

The new agreements with European Card Payment Cooperation (ECPC), nexo standards and the Berlin Group allow the reuse of their existing open technical standards for processing digital euro online payments, the ECB said in a Friday (April 24) press release.

These standards include ECPC’s CPACE standards that support contactless tap-to-pay payments, nexo standards’ specifications that support payment acceptance and cash-machine transactions, and Berlin Group’s standards that allow payments to be made using a mobile phone number or other alias. More standards could be added in the future, according to the release.

Leveraging these existing open technical standards will minimize costs for European payment solutions, simplify digital euro acceptance, create a uniform user experience across the euro area, and enable European payment solutions to expand geographically and diversify use cases, the release said.

With the digital euro standard in place, European payment solutions providers will be ready if EU co-legislators adopt the digital euro regulation and digital euro issuance begins, per the release.

“This partnership shows our strong commitment to making sure the digital euro works with existing European standards that the private sector can also use,” ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said in the release. “The open digital euro standards will provide a European free alternative to current proprietary standards, making it easier for new European providers to enter the market and give European payment service providers and merchants the certainty they need to invest, innovate and compete across the euro area.”

The Financial Times reported Friday that European lawmakers are still discussing the legislation that is needed to begin a rollout of the digital euro. The European parliament is set to hold a critical vote on the issue this summer.

Cipollone said in January that the digital euro would provide the retail payments infrastructure the euro zone currently lacks. Speaking at a conference in Italy, Cipollone argued that Europe must become self-sufficient in payments as transactions move deeper into digital channels and that the digital euro would help give the euro zone the tools it needs “to keep its house in order.”