ECB names 36 payment providers for digital euro pilot as US shuns central bank coin
Frankfurt selects Stripe, Revolut and major banks for a 2027 digital euro trial, sharpening the transatlantic split over central bank digital currencies.
The European Central Bank has selected 36 payment service providers to take part in a year-long pilot of the digital euro, moving the eurozone’s central bank digital currency (CBDC) project from design into live testing and widening the policy gap with Washington, where lawmakers have moved to bar the Federal Reserve from issuing an equivalent instrument.
The ECB confirmed the shortlist in an official announcement, describing a beta phase that will run for twelve months once it begins in the second half of 2027. The central bank said it drew more than 50 applications after opening a call for interest to payment firms across the euro area in March 2026, a response rate officials will likely cite as evidence of industry appetite for the project despite years of scepticism from commercial banks.
Fintechs sit alongside established lenders
The selected cohort spans both incumbents and challengers. Stripe and Revolut feature alongside traditional lenders including Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and France’s BPCE, reflecting the ECB’s stated intention to test the digital euro across varied technical infrastructures and customer bases rather than confining the trial to legacy banking rails.
Italy contributed the largest national contingent, with seven firms selected: UniCredit, Poste Italiane, Nexi Payments, Banca Sella, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Isybank and Numia. The concentration underscores Rome’s active engagement with the Eurosystem’s digital currency work relative to some other member states.
Revolut’s inclusion is notable given the firm’s recent retreat from parts of the crypto market for European users, having phased out support for Tether’s USDt stablecoin for its EU customer base. Its participation in a state-backed digital currency trial, even as it curbs exposure to dollar-pegged stablecoins, illustrates how payment platforms operating under MiCA are now positioning themselves across both the regulated stablecoin and CBDC tracks simultaneously.
A widening transatlantic divide
The pilot’s advance comes as the United States has taken the opposite path, with legislative action moving to prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail CBDC altogether. Washington’s preference has instead been to channel digital-dollar demand through privately issued, dollar-backed stablecoins under frameworks such as the Genius Act, leaving commercial issuers rather than the central bank at the centre of dollar tokenisation.
That divergence matters for European institutions and markets participants. A sovereign digital euro, run through supervised payment providers, would give the Eurosystem direct visibility over retail digital payments in a way that stablecoin-based dollar systems do not offer the Fed, a distinction that is likely to feature in future debates over monetary sovereignty and payments competitiveness between the two blocs.
For now, the ECB’s task is technical rather than political: testing settlement, offline functionality and integration with existing payment rails across 36 firms before any decision on a full rollout is taken. Commercial banks, some of which have previously voiced concern about deposit disintermediation, will be watching the pilot’s findings closely as the bloc edges towards a possible public launch beyond 2027.
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