Holistic strategy covers wholesale, business‑to‑business, retail and cross‑border payments together in one coherent vision, at a time when technology and geopolitics are reshaping the payments landscape.
The Eurosystem has today published its comprehensive payments strategy, outlining its vision for the evolution of Europe’s payments amid rapid technological change. It complements the Eurosystem’s cash strategy and extends the Eurosystem’s retail payments strategy by covering wholesale, business-to-business and cross-border payments. It takes into account the gradual adoption of new technologies such as tokenisation and distributed ledger technology, and ensures that innovation can advance while central bank money remains the anchor of trust and stability.
“Payments are critical for society, and they are changing rapidly,” said Piero Cipollone, member of the ECB’s Executive Board. “Whether it’s retail, wholesale or business-to-business payments, both domestic and cross-border, the ECB is working to ensure that they continue to be reliable, fast, competitive and open for innovation.”
The strategy has four main strategic aims: maintaining the key role of central bank money in retail and wholesale markets to ensure the effectiveness of monetary policy, financial stability and the smooth functioning of payment systems; making Europe’s payment system more robust and autonomous; encouraging more integrated, innovative and competitive payments for people and businesses; and supporting the international role of the euro.
The strategy recommends that the innovative potential of tokenisation should be seized and outlines the Eurosystem’s position on tokenised settlement assets. For the settlement of wholesale transactions, central bank money should remain at the core, complemented by private settlement assets like tokenised deposits and stablecoins that are EU‑governed, euro‑denominated and properly designed and regulated. The strategy also calls for standardisation, automation and process integration in business‑to‑business payments, so that companies can benefit from efficient and innovative solutions.
Regarding retail payments, the strategy highlights how the digital euro can play a key role in fostering the development of pan-European private retail payment solutions, therefore underscoring the complementarity between the two.
The strategy brings together all major Eurosystem initiatives – the digital euro, the work on Pontes and Appia, as well as enhancements to cross‑border payments – in a comprehensive framework to ensure that central bank money adapts to the digital age while supporting private sector initiatives in both the wholesale and retail space.
Menno Broos, Project lead Digital Euro at De Nederlandsche Bank commented: „One of Europe’s real strengths is SEPA for account-to-account (A2A) payments. Common rules, standards and reach have enabled competition, innovation and scale on top of a shared public framework. The strategy rightly highlights that this success has not yet been fully replicated at the point of interaction, where fragmentation still limits choice, efficiency and pan‑European solutions. Creating a more harmonised POI framework, inspired by what SEPA achieved for A2A payments, is essential if Europe wants to strengthen its retail payments ecosystem.”
He added: „What further stands out to me is the explicit recognition that this cannot be delivered by the public or the private sector alone. Central bank money remains the anchor of trust and stability, while market participants drive innovation, customer experience and adoption. In this context, the digital euro is positioned as a public backbone that can support and reinforce private retail payment solutions, including at the point of interaction, rather than replacing them.„
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