Central Bank Digital Currencies in Europe

A central bank digital currency (CBDC) is digital money in the national unit of account that is a direct claim on the central bank. A retail CBDC is for people and companies, like digital cash. A wholesale CBDC is for banks and financial institutions, to settle large payments and securities trades. In Europe the two forms move at different speeds: the retail projects wait on lawmakers, while the wholesale ones already run in production or pilots, because they build on accounts that banks already hold at their central bank.

The retail CBDC of the European Union is the digital euro, proposed by the Commission in COM(2023) 369. The Council and the European Parliament have adopted their positions, and the trilogue is under way, according to the ECB. The ECB plans a 12-month pilot and names 2029 as the earliest year of issuance if the regulation is adopted in time. The digital euro in Frankfurt page covers the project, the holding limit and the view of German banks.

On the wholesale side the Eurosystem launched Pontes on September 21, 2026. Pontes links market DLT platforms to TARGET Services, so participants can settle tokenized transactions in central bank money, with cash tokens on a Eurosystem DLT platform or in T2. A second track, Appia, studies a long-term tokenized system for the euro area. Before Pontes, the Eurosystem tested three solutions from May to November 2024. One of them was the Trigger Solution of the Deutsche Bundesbank, which 25 institutions explored.

Research runs through the BIS Innovation Hub as well. Its Eurosystem center opened in March 2023 with offices in Frankfurt and Paris, hosted by the Bundesbank and the Banque de France, and wholesale CBDC is one of its focus areas. For a bank treasury or a securities depository, wholesale CBDC matters because it lets a tokenized bond settle against central bank money in the same step.

Outside the euro area, the Swiss National Bank has issued wholesale CBDC in Swiss francs on the SIX Digital Asset Platform since the end of 2023 in its pilot Helvetia, which runs until at least June 2028 with nine eligible banks. For a retail digital franc the SNB currently sees no clear advantages for the public, as it writes on its CBDC page.

The Bank of England is in the design phase of a possible digital pound together with HM Treasury. Its October 2025 update says it is developing a blueprint, with experiments in its Digital Pound Lab, and no decision to introduce a digital pound has been made; Parliament would have to pass legislation first. In Sweden, a government inquiry presented in March 2023 found insufficient social need for the Riksbank to issue an e-krona, as Central Banking reported, and recommended that the Riksbank keep studying it.

A CBDC competes with private digital money. Euro stablecoins under MiCA and tokenized bank deposits offer some of the same functions, but they are claims on a private issuer or a commercial bank, not on the central bank. The stablecoin vs CBDC answer compares them in detail, and stablecoins in Europe covers the private side.

Privacy concerns are the most common objection to a retail CBDC in Europe. For the digital euro the ECB states that the Eurosystem could not link payments to specific people, and that offline payments would be known only to payer and payee. Online, the distributing bank checks users under anti-money laundering rules, as it does for accounts today.

Finance Loop is the meeting place for people at central banks, commercial banks, market infrastructures and payment providers who work on CBDCs. The Digital Euro Association, a Frankfurt think tank for CBDCs, stablecoins and other digital money, has been a strategic partner of Finance Loop since November 2025. It publishes trackers and policy briefs and teaches a CBDC course in its Digital Money Academy. The DEA organizes the Digital Euro Conference in Frankfurt, where retail and wholesale CBDC models are on the program.

Finance Loop and Venturebloxx prepared The Future of Money in Europe, an institutional report on stablecoins, tokenized deposits, CBDCs and tokenized settlement, with perspectives from institutions including the Banque de France, Euroclear and Commerzbank. Finance Loop was also media partner of the European Blockchain Convention 2026 in Barcelona, where the role of CBDCs in cross-border settlement was a topic.

A CBDC, or central bank digital currency, is digital money in the national currency that is a direct liability of the central bank. A retail CBDC is for everyone; a wholesale CBDC is for banks and financial institutions.

Wholesale CBDC settles payments between financial institutions, for example a tokenized bond against cash through Pontes or Helvetia. Retail CBDC is for everyday payments by people and companies, like the planned digital euro. Wholesale CBDC builds on the accounts banks already hold at the central bank; retail CBDC gives the public a new direct claim.

For banks, wholesale settlement in central bank money is already live through Pontes. For the public, the ECB names 2029 as the earliest year for a first issuance of the digital euro, after a 12-month pilot and only if the EU regulation is adopted in time.

A CBDC is issued by the central bank and is a claim on it. A stablecoin is issued by a private company and backed by reserves; in the EU it needs a MiCA authorization as an e-money token or asset-referenced token. Both can be used for digital payments.