Nexi: Digital Euro Could Fit Easily Into The World Of Payments

Testing by the ECB and an Italian company called Nexi has shown that a digital euro could be easily added to the way payments are made in Europe now, while still giving room for new features and technologies.

Even though there hasn’t been a final decision on whether or not to issue a digital euro yet, the ECB has been busy looking into different options ahead of a possible launch, which wouldn’t happen until at least 2026.

The central bank started working with Nexi, CaixaBank, Amazon, Worldline, and EPI last year to try different payment use cases with front-end prototypes from these five companies.

Nexi was picked by the payee use case to handle payments made at the point of sale. In an update on the project, it says that it is possible to integrate it with the current payment system and that a digital euro would work both online and offline using separate designs, which would make it more stable.

The chief business officer for retail solutions at Nexi, Roberto Catanzaro, says:

“An engaging user and merchant experience is paramount to ensure wide adoption of the digital euro and we have brought our best expertise in both acceptance and mobile payments technologies to set a clear way forward.”