Amazon Is Testing Digital Euro Prototypes

The European Central Bank (EBC) has partnered with five companies, including Amazon, to test its digital euro.

Digital Euro Testing

Amazon is one of five companies testing a digital euro.

According to an announcement from the ECB on September 15, five companies will cooperate to develop prototype user interfaces related to its planned upcoming digital euro. The exercise will use simulated transactions to test whether the digital euro effectively integrates with those interfaces.

The most notable participant is Amazon, which will create an interface to handle e-commerce payments. It is unclear whether the company will produce a variation on its official storefront or create an entirely new interface.

Today’s news does not indicate that Amazon plans to accept the digital euro should the ECB ever launch one.

Other companies involved in the project include the Spanish bank CaixaBank and the European payments processor Worldline. Those companies will create interfaces for online and offline peer-to-peer payments, respectively.

Finally, the European Payments Initiative (EPI) and the paytech firm Nexi will provide interfaces for point-of-sale transactions. The EPI’s solution will focus on payer-initiated transactions, while Nexi’s will focus on payee-initiated transactions.

Those five companies were selected from a pool of 54 companies that responded to an early call for expressions of interest.

Despite the high standing of each company, their work may have little impact in the long run. “There are no plans to re-use the prototypes in the subsequent phases of the digital euro project,” the European Central Bank said in today’s announcement.

The results of the experiment will be published in 2023.

Recent reports suggest that a legal framework for the EU’s digital euro will also be delivered in 2023. Some estimates suggest a digital euro could be launched in 2025.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned BTC, ETH, and other cryptocurrencies.