ECB outlines plans for 2029 digital euro launch

The introduction of a digital euro could cost European banks between €4 billion and €6 billion over four years if legislation is approved in 2026, European Central Bank executive board member Piero Cipollone said during a speech this week.

Speaking to an Italian parliamentary committee in Rome outlining plans for a 2027 pilot and a potential launch in 2029, Cipollone said the estimate was based on feedback from lenders and amounted to roughly 3 per cent of their annual IT maintenance spending. “Estimates we’ve come up with based on indications we received from banks point to implementation costs of between 4 and 6 billion euros over four years,” he said.

The ECB’s own set-up costs are projected at about €1.3 billion, with annual operating expenses of around €300 million.

Cipollone said banks would be able to recoup their investment through fees charged to merchants for digital euro services, while the ECB would not levy scheme or settlement fees. “As PSPs would not pay scheme fees for digital euro, it would generate ample fee revenue,” he said, adding that fee caps would be aligned with average debit card charges to protect banks for at least five years.

The ECB plans to begin a 12-month pilot in the second half of 2027 involving a limited number of banks, merchants and staff, with real-world transactions to test technical readiness and the business model. The central bank is selecting lenders to participate ahead of a targeted issuance date of 2029, contingent on EU lawmakers adopting the regulation next year.

Cipollone framed the project as a response to Europe’s reliance on non-EU card schemes, noting that nearly two-thirds of card payments in the euro area are processed by international providers including Visa and Mastercard.

“We aim to be ready for a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029,” he said, arguing that a public digital currency would strengthen monetary sovereignty and provide a European alternative for retail payments.

Under the ECB’s blueprint, the digital euro would be distributed through banks, integrated into existing payment systems and available both online and offline, with holding limits to mitigate risks to financial stability.

In the UK, Britain’s largest banks are pursuing a parallel effort to establish a sovereign alternative to US card networks, reflecting similar concerns about reliance on American-owned infrastructure. According to the Guardian, Barclays UK chief executive Vim Maru is chairing a City-funded initiative known as DeliveryCo, bringing together lenders including Santander UK, NatWest, Nationwide, Lloyds Banking Group, Link and Coventry Building Society to develop a domestic payments company.

The Guardian reported that about 95 per cent of UK card transactions are processed through Visa and Mastercard, citing a 2025 Payment Systems Regulator report, and quoted one executive involved in the project as saying: “If Mastercard and Visa were turned off, it would send us back to the 1950s. Of course, we need a sovereign payments system.” Sarah Breeden, deputy governor at the Bank of England, said in a recent speech that a new system “could provide a degree of extra resilience in the UK payments landscape”, while former Nationwide chief executive Joe Garner told the Guardian that “regardless of any political developments, the UK needs to do this”.