The European Central Bank and the wider Eurosystem have opened a merchant pilot for the digital euro, inviting online and mobile commerce businesses to test how the payment method would work at checkout. The exercise is designed to measure whether a digital euro can be added to existing payment journeys with limited disruption for merchants.
The beta pilot will run for 12 months and is part of a broader programme involving the ECB and the 19 national central banks of the euro area. According to the plan described by the Eurosystem, the operational phase is expected to begin in the second half of 2027.
How the merchant test is structured
Participating merchants will be required to offer a dedicated checkout flow that is accessible only to pilot participants. They must also work with an acquiring pilot payment service provider for onboarding, technical integration, testing and day-to-day operations during the exercise.
The payment route being tested places the acquiring pilot PSP and its infrastructure between the merchant and the digital euro payment. Merchants will have to cover their own costs for taking part, while pilot PSPs are not allowed to charge payment-service fees under the pilot.
What the checkout experience will look like
In the proposed setup, eligible users will be able to choose a beta digital euro as a payment option inside the dedicated checkout. If a default payment app exists, the checkout may open it through an embedded app-to-app redirect.
If there is no default app, users can instead enter an alias or a digital euro account number before opening their payment application. They will then review the merchant and payment details, confirm the transaction and authorize it, with confirmation expected to appear both in the payment app and on the merchant website.
What merchants and PSPs must report
The pilot is intended to generate practical feedback, not just technical test results. Merchants will report data on successful and failed transactions, payment completion times, cancellations, repeat acceptance and technical defects.
They are also expected to detail support requirements, reconciliation work and any changes needed to their acceptance infrastructure. In addition, the Eurosystem wants feedback on checkout integration, the payment journey, implementation difficulties, confidence in accepting the payment method, the operational burden involved and the communications materials used during the test.
Broader scope and next confirmed step
The merchant pilot is one part of a wider digital euro trial covering online and offline person-to-person payments as well as several person-to-business use cases. Some participating payment service providers may handle both the merchant side and the user side of the process.
The ECB has said the pilot uses a beta version of the digital euro that is intended to resemble the proposed system from a technical standpoint, but it will not carry legal tender status. Any eventual decision to issue a digital euro would come only after EU legislation, making the second half of 2027 operational phase the next confirmed milestone in the current plan.
Source: Coin Edition