ECB Locks In European Standards to Power Digital Euro Payments

The ECB signed agreements with ECPC, nexo standards and the Berlin Group to build open digital euro payment infrastructure across the euro area.

The European Central Bank signed formal agreements with three payment standardisation bodies on April 24. The partners are ECPC, nexo standards and the Berlin Group. Together, they will supply the open technical standards for processing digital euro online payments.

This is not a small coordination exercise. Europe currently lacks a universally available open standard across payment terminals. The continent depends heavily on proprietary standards owned by international card schemes and global digital wallets.

Europe’s Payment Gap Just Got Addressed

The ECB confirmed via its official press release that each partner covers a distinct layer. ECPC contributes its CPACE standard for contactless tap-to-pay payments using near-field communication. nexo standards connect merchant systems to payment service provider back-ends, handling payment acceptance and cash-machine transactions. The Berlin Group brings alias-based payments, balance checks and reconciliation across mobile devices.

Three standards. Three different parts of the payment chain. One digital euro.

ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone chairs the High-Level Task Force on the digital euro. The open standards, he said, will give European providers a free alternative to the proprietary systems currently dominant across the continent. They will also make it easier for new providers to enter the market. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Cipollone stated that “the open digital euro standards will provide a European free alternative to current proprietary standards” and let payment service providers “invest, innovate and compete across the euro area.”

What Each Standard Actually Does

Ana Grade, CEO of ECPC, said the bilateral agreement with the ECB will push the CPACE standard’s visibility further. Jean-Philippe Joliveau, Chairman of the Board of nexo standards, said the cooperation confirms nexo’s place as an international standardisation body for payment acceptance. Markus Schierack, Managing Director of SRC and representative of the Berlin Group, called open standards the foundation of a competitive European payments market and welcomed the ECB’s participation in the standards process.

The digital euro regulation still needs adoption by EU co-legislators. That step, once done, would give the digital euro legal tender status and let European payment providers scale operations beyond national borders. A national card scheme, for example, could expand to point-of-sale environments in other markets without requiring terminal hardware upgrades on the ground.

The benefits kick in before issuance, according to the ECB. Providers can coordinate and build now. The certainty comes later.

One Move That Shifts the Whole Board

The standards chosen were selected together with market participants in the Rulebook Development Group. They align with the Eurosystem payments strategy. The ECB also noted that additional standards could be added later, subject to Governing Council approval.

Europe’s broader push to reduce dependency on foreign payment infrastructure runs through this. As European authorities study public blockchains for settlement-layer options, the ECB is building the standards layer from below, starting with what merchants and terminals actually touch every day.

The Berlin Group’s standards are already used by roughly 80% of the European market. nexo operates as a non-profit headquartered in Brussels. ECPC, founded in 2020 by six European firms across France, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain and Portugal, makes the CPACE standard available free of charge.

Free access. Broad adoption. Less dependence on US and global card networks. That is what the ECB is building toward, one signed agreement at a time.

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