ECB Selects Five Companies to Develop User Interface Prototypes for CBDC

As talks about digital euro progress, the European Central Bank (ECB) has selected five firms to develop user interface prototypes for the CBDC.

The ECB plans to gauge how a technology hosting the digital euro would function with user interfaces developed by third parties. The financial institution noted: “The aim of this prototyping exercise is to test how well the technology behind a digital Euro integrates with prototypes developed by companies,” adding, “Simulated transactions will be initiated using the front-end prototypes developed by the five companies and processed through the Eurosystem’s interface and back-end.”

The ECB Selection from the Expression of Interest

After launching its digital euro initiative in June 2021, the bank has selected Amazon, CaixaBank, Worldline, the European Payments Initiative (EPI), and Nexi out of 54 applicants after a call for expression of interest in April.

The bank further detailed: “All the companies fulfilled a number of essential capabilities that were outlined in [our] call, while the five providers chosen [have] best matched the specific capabilities required for the assigned use case.”

The selected companies are all focusing on different objectives, with Amazon working on an e-commerce payment solution, CaixaBank on a peer-to-peer online payments interface, Worldline on a P2P offline payment system, EPI on a point of sale (PoS) payments initiative, and Nexi on PoS payment solution initiated by Payee.

ECB further noted: “There are no plans to reuse the prototypes in the subsequent phases of the digital euro project.”

The user interface prototype initiative by the ECB is part of a two-year investigative campaign for its proposed digital euro project. This campaign is expected to be concluded in Q1 2023 when the financial institution will publish its findings. The bank noted:

“The digital Euro would be like Euro banknotes, but digital. It would be an electronic form of money, issued by the Eurosystem (the ECB and the national central banks of the Euro area), and would be accessible to all citizens and firms.”

The ECB concluded by adding:

“A digital Euro would not replace cash, but rather complement it. A digital Euro would give people an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to accessibility and inclusion.”