A major concern in the design of a future digital euro (see EUROPE 13717/15), the possibility of making offline payments is becoming clearer. On Thursday 2 October, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced the conclusion of a classification framework agreement for the development, implementation and partial operation of such a function.
Following a negotiated public procurement procedure (PRO-009494 Digital Euro Offline Solution), a pan-European cooperation was selected as the first-ranked tenderer, led by security technology company Giesecke+Devrient (G+D), in partnership with payment services provider Nexi and international consulting and digital transformation firm Capgemini.
“We are honoured to partner with the European Central Bank in shaping the future of public money for generations to come”, said Wolfram Seidemann, CEO of G+D Currency Technology, in a press release on Thursday.
Following the conclusion of this framework agreement, the security technology company and the other selected service providers will work with the ECB to finalise planning and timetables.
Under the direction of the Governing Council of the monetary institute and in accordance with EU legislation, this work will cover the design, integration and development of the Digital Euro Service Platform (DESP).
See the ECB’s contract award notice for the offline solution for the digital euro: https://aeur.eu/f/iqf (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)