There will be 36 banks and payment service providers (PSPs) in the euro area participating in the digital euro pilot project. They were selected by the European Central Bank, which received over 50 applications in response to the call for expressions of interest launched in March 2026, selecting banks and other operators based on representativeness criteria for business models, size, and geographic coverage.
Among the 36 chosen are eight Italian operators: Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Banca Sella, Isybank, Nexi Payments, Numia, Poste Italiane, UniCredit, and Satispay Europe, which however applied in Luxembourg. Among the main international groups involved are also Deutsche Bank, Bpce, Banco Comercial Português (Bcp), Raiffeisen Bank International, National Bank of Greece, Piraeus Bank, Bank of Cyprus, as well as fintech and payment operators such as Adyen, Revolut, Stripe, SumUp, and Worldline.
As explained by the Eurotower, the experimentation will serve to verify the technical functionalities, operational processes, and user experience of the future European digital currency, within the preparatory phase for its possible introduction. The project will start in the second half of 2027 and will last 12 months. The project will use a beta version of the digital euro, technically very close to that provided by the European legislative proposal, but still lacking the status of legal tender.
Some operators will provide digital euro distribution services, allowing Eurosystem staff to open beta accounts and make payments, while others will operate on the acceptance side at selected merchants. The tests will involve staff from the ECB and central banks of 19 euro area countries, including the Bank of Italy, and will include payments between individuals and to businesses, both online and at physical points of sale, also in offline mode.
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