During a meeting at the Italian banker’s association ABI, European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Piero Cipollone revealed a few new details about the digital euro. Firstly, a pilot is planned for mid 2027, provided the central bank digital currency (CBDC) gets the regulatory go ahead this year. It’s unclear whether the regulatory timeline outlined is achievable (more below).
Secondly, while the ECB has often spoken about the need to reduce the reliance on US card networks such as Visa and Mastercard, most discussions have been around digital wallets. For this speech it visualized the digital euro’s role as a replacement in a card mockup, alongside domestic Italian network PagoBANCOMAT. It makes sense for PagoBANCOMAT to support the digital euro, but the reality is that most PagoBANCOMAT cards are cobranded with Visa and Mastercard. While a digital euro might reduce the need for the cobrand for European payments, it doesn’t eliminate it.
Consumers who plan to travel outside Europe or buy goods online from beyond Europe’s borders will want to be able to use their cards internationally. It remains to be seen to what extent foreign merchants would be allowed to (or willing to) accept digital euros. In fact, there’s a business opportunity here: to provide foreign merchants with the ability to instantly switch digital euro receipts into foreign stablecoins.
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