You may not have noticed it yet, but in Brussels, Frankfurt and elsewhere, IT specialists, lawyers, financial specialists, behavioural scientists and many other project members are steadily working on the preparation of a digital euro. In this audio article, Ronald te Velde and Hans Croon explain the main characteristics of this European CBDC in the making, and the challenges facing banks, PSPs and the regulators to fit the digital euro into their strategies.

Connective Payments consultants and project leaders have been contributing intensively to the Dutch DCA (Debit Card Acceptance) program, to enable the transition from V PAY and Maestro to VISA Debit and Debit Mastercard respectively. This spoken article tells you all about the results now the the projects finished.

An exciting development this summer: four years after the announcement of the European Payments Initiative (EPI), the first EPI application will finally go live. The digital wallet, called Wero, will launch in Germany, Belgium and France.

Backed by 14 major Eurozone banks and acquirers Worldline and Nets, the EPI has set itself the goal of building a unified pan-European payment system, offering a digital wallet, initially to support P2P and consumer-to-business payments, in 2025-26 followed by online and mobile shopping payments and ultimately point-of-sale payments and digital identity.