The European Central Bank has committed to to promote, develop and ensure the digital euro app is easily accessible for everyone, including people with disabilities or limited digital skills and older adults.

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The ECB is collaborating with Spanish financial inclusion agency the Once Foundation to get technical advice on the accessibility requirements and features of the digital euro app, and testing once the first prototypes are available.

“Accessibility and inclusion are not optional features, but core digital euro design principles,” says ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, who chairs the High-Level Task Force on a digital euro. “By working with organisations such as the Once Foundation, we are helping to ensure that the digital euro empowers every citizen in the digital age, leaving no one behind.”

Cipollone procided a further update on progress of the project following a recent decision by the European Parliament to approve both online and off-line version of the digital euro.

He says the central bank will conduct a 12-month pilot, starting in the second half of 2027, involving real-world transactions and a limited number of banks, merchants and ECB staff to test readiness and improve the value proposition.

Under the existing blueprint, it will be possible to integrate the digital euro into existing digital and physical private sector payment systems, including co-badging with domestic cards.

“This will eliminate the need to pay international card scheme fees for euro area cross-border transactions, fostering independence from such schemes,” says Cipollone.

Equally, banks will be protected for at least five years as fee caps will be set at a level comparable to the average fees for payments made with debit cards that can be used both at the point of sale and for e-commerce.

Says Cippolone: “As PSPs would not pay scheme fees for digital euro, it would generate ample fee revenue.”

Monetary sovereignty and indepence from the power of the major card schemes is a key requisite and selling point for the digital euro given growing political instability and Europe’s reliance on the US-owned Visa and Mastercard for processing daily payments.

“We aim to be ready for a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029,” says Cipollone. “This is based on a working assumption that the EU co-legislators will adopt the Regulation on the establishment of the digital euro in the course of 2026.”

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