ECB choses 5 companies including Amazon to develop digital euro prototype

The European Central Bank (ECB) has made public its decision to enlist the assistance of five new partners in the creation of a digital euro prototype.

When it comes to putting together the prototype, each of the companies will be responsible for a different aspect. One of them is the giant of the tech industry, Amazon, which will be in charge of the development of e-commerce payment systems as part of the initiative.

On the other hand, the French multinational payment provider Worldline will develop the offline version of the peer-to-peer payments for a smartphone application, while the internet version will be developed by the Spanish financial institution CaixaBank.

The European Payment Initiative, which is supported by the ECB, and the Italian paytech company Nexi, respectively, are in charge of processing point-of-sale payments from the payer and payee, respectively.

ECB boosting CBDC efforts

At the end of April, the ECB issued a request for potential partners and received a total of 54 responses from a variety of institutions, including national banks and global tech firms. The five service providers who were picked were chosen as they met with “specific capabilities,” which were an advantage on top of the needed fundamental requirements.

The prototyping process is planned to get underway sometime during the month of September and continue through the end of December.

This procedure is part of an ongoing inquiry phase that has lasted for more than two years at this point. The ECB plans to finish this phase by March 2023, during which time it will evaluate both the success of the partners’ work as well as the prototypes that they have produced.

July 2021 marked the beginning of the ECB’s investigation into the creation of a digital version of the euro without the commitment to creating the digital currency at the conclusion.

Notably, ECB recently stated that CBDCs have the potential to fight market dominance from big technology giants.