By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said Wednesday that the ECB had received more than 50 applications from payment service providers seeking to participate in next year’s digital euro pilot.

In an introductory statement to the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in Brussels, Cipollone said the ECB was evaluating the applications and would announce selected participants in July.

The applications showed “a good balance across business models,” including smaller and larger banks, acquiring and distributing payment service providers and country coverage, he said.

Development was expected to start in the third quarter of this year, with the pilot itself expected to begin in the second half of 2027, he said.

The exercise would use the infrastructure being developed for the digital euro, validate its functionality in real-world conditions and allow feedback from participants, Cipollone said.

He also welcomed progress in European Parliament negotiations on the Single Currency Package, which includes proposals on the legal tender of cash and the digital euro.

The two files should be adopted together, he said, arguing that this reinforced the idea that euro cash and the digital euro were the same money using different technologies.

“Ensuring that people remain free to use cash is at the core of our work as a central bank,” Cipollone said.

The ECB “strongly” supported the proposal on the legal tender of cash because it would safeguard cash acceptance and availability and align cash policies across the Eurozone, he said.

Cipollone also said the ECB expected to decide by the end of this year on the final theme for the redesigned euro banknotes.

The new design would be based on either “European culture” or “Rivers and birds,” he said. The first denominations of the new series were expected to be issued in the early 2030s.

They would include enhanced security features and be produced with more sustainable materials and production methods, he said.

Turning to digital euro standards, Cipollone said the ECB in May signed cooperation agreements with three European standard-setting organizations.

These would give the market early clarity on the standards the digital euro would use and on which private operators could already begin building solutions, he said.

Europe remained heavily dependent on proprietary standards controlled by international card schemes, limiting the scalability of European payment solutions, he said.

The digital euro, by contrast, would provide uniform open standards across the Eurozone because of its legal tender status, he said.

This would ensure that payment cards, phones and terminals used “the same European language that we have created and own ourselves,” he said.

By leveraging digital euro standards, European private payment solutions would also be able to expand across the Eurozone and diversify use cases without requiring further technical terminal upgrades at the point of sale, Cipollone said.

He said this showed how the digital euro could complement and benefit private solutions.

Technical clarity alone was not sufficient, however, he said.

Only the co-legislators could provide the legal certainty needed for the standards to apply across the Eurozone by establishing a digital euro with legal tender status, Cipollone said.

Timely progress on the legislative framework was therefore essential, he said.

Finishing trilogues and adopting the Single Currency Package by January 1, 2027, would send a strong symbolic message on the 25th anniversary of euro banknotes and coins entering circulation, Cipollone said.

It would show that cash and the digital euro were “two sides of the same coin,” he said.