The European Central Bank (ECB) is inviting private companies and organisations to participate in the next phase of its digital euro innovation platform, expanding collaboration around new payment services and emerging technologies.
Participation is open to merchants, payment service providers, fintech companies, technology providers, consumer associations, research institutions and public-sector organisations. The initiative will be structured around two workstreams: experimentation and exploration.
The experimentation track will transform potential digital euro applications into working solutions. Areas under consideration include e-receipts, multi-payee transactions, conditional payments and innovative application features that could improve digital payment experiences.
Experiments are scheduled to run from January to June 2027. Selected participants will develop and test solutions before submitting a proof of concept and an outcome report documenting their findings.
The exploration workstream looks further ahead, examining technologies that could strengthen the future digital euro infrastructure. Participants from different industries will collaborate on potential applications for consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments.
A particularly significant area is the intersection of the digital euro with artificial intelligence and agentic payments. As autonomous AI agents increasingly perform transactions on behalf of users and businesses, digital currencies could potentially provide trusted infrastructure for machine-initiated payments, subject to appropriate controls and authorization.
Other areas include transportation, mobility, utility payments, smart cities, financial inclusion, public-sector automation and resilience scenarios. Workshops will take place at ECB premises during the first two quarters of 2027.
The initiative shows that the digital euro is evolving beyond simply replicating cash electronically. The ECB is increasingly exploring how a central-bank digital currency could support intelligent, automated and potentially AI-driven payment ecosystems, while retaining security, interoperability and public trust.
