In the sixth version of its draft technical and operational rulebook for the digital euro, published on Monday 6 July, the European Central Bank (ECB) has incorporated a significant proportion of the feedback gathered during a consultation conducted in 2025 with banks, traders, consumer associations and other payment stakeholders.
This new version continues the development of the offline mode, which the ECB presents as offering a high level of privacy. For online payments, however, it specifies an architecture in which banks remain the primary interface between the user and the digital wallet infrastructure.
“As part of the functional requirements, the business rules have been refined where necessary, and the related E2E [End-2-End] flows incorporated improvements based on market feedback. The high-level transaction flows and underlying E2E flows have also been adjusted to reflect the separation of the authorisation and settlement flows [...], allowing PSPs [payment service providers] to better leverage synergies with existing PSP processes”, the ECB explains.
The Frankfurt-based institution notes that the rulebook’s first final version will be finalised after the adoption of the Digital Euro Regulation, which, unless a sufficient number of MEPs request it, will not be put to a vote in plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week (see EUROPE 13894/20). For its part, the EU Council is ready to negotiate.
See the ECB draft technical and operational rulebook: https://aeur.eu/f/mqa (Original version in French by Bernard Denuit)