The European Central Bank set the new agenda, which opened applications for tenders for the Europe CBDC project, mainly focusing on its offline uses.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has spearheaded the digital euro’s experiments as Europe’s leading central bank digital currency (CBDC). The Europe CBDC project recently received a new update, as the bank published multiple tenders. The tenders called for providers who could mainly create offline services around the retail digital euro. The bank has set aside a significant chunk of its contract budget for offline use cases.
In the contract notice inviting applications, the bank said, “The current procurement procedure focuses on a solution to make offline digital euro payments available to users and merchants across Europe. The ability to pay offline, with no third party involved in the transaction is a key feature of the digital euro, both for resilience and privacy purposes.”
The bank further said it sought an end-to-end solution and full rights for using, modifying, and redistributing among intermediaries. The ECB also specified other features that it was looking for, including risk management, user application, and information security.
The ECB’s efforts to create a digital euro that could boost CBDC adoption and use cases have continued for over a year. Industry leaders have also complimented the bank’s efforts for creating CBDC use cases across all countries of the European Union. Meanwhile, a few days ago, the ECB’s rulebook development group published a report specifying the standards of the CBDC. The report was a draft of the future digital currency.
Besides ECB officials publicly promoting the CBDC use cases of the digital euro, the bank has also accelerated its experiments. Following the end of its investigation phase in 2023, the bank immediately started its preparation phase.
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