ECB launches second digital euro innovation platform wave, targeting AI agents and public services
Key points
- The ECB is accepting applications until 9 November for a second round of its digital euro innovation platform, with programme work scheduled from January to June 2027.
- An experimentation workstream requires participants to deliver proofs of concept in four areas: electronic receipts in payment apps, multi-party transactions, cross-provider conditional payment consistency, and value-added PSP features.
- An exploration workstream consisting of ECB-hosted workshops in Frankfurt will examine AI-driven payments, including AI agent-to-agent transactions and micropayments, as well as public-sector digital euro applications.
- Public-sector themes under exploration include transport, utility billing, smart city initiatives, financial inclusion and resilience scenarios.
- The second round builds on the first round's mandate to validate conditional payments on core digital euro infrastructure, now extending toward applied services and forward-looking use cases.
The European Central Bank is opening applications for a second cohort of its digital euro innovation platform, inviting merchants, payment service providers, fintechs, technical vendors and public bodies to participate. Applications close on 9 November, with programme activity running through the first half of 2027.
The platform divides into two workstreams. An experimentation track, running January to June 2027, asks participants to build proofs of concept across four defined areas: electronic receipts embedded in payment apps, multi-payer or multi-payee transactions, cross-provider consistency in conditional payments, and value-added features that payment service providers could layer into their own applications. Each participant is expected to deliver a proof of concept and an outcome report, with the ECB reserving the option to publish key findings.
A parallel exploration workstream takes the form of Frankfurt-based workshops during the same period and reaches into less settled territory. One workshop theme examines artificial intelligence in payments, covering scenarios where AI agents transact autonomously with one another, micropayment flows, and how such architectures sit alongside privacy-by-design principles and user control requirements. The other theme addresses public-sector applications, ranging from transport and utility billing to smart city initiatives, financial inclusion and resilience use cases. Together the two themes signal that the ECB is deliberately widening the conceptual aperture of digital euro development beyond retail payment basics.