The European Payments Council has published a report positioning fintech companies as critical enablers of digital euro adoption, arguing that innovation at the application and service layer will determine whether the future CBDC gains real traction across Europe. The findings underline that the digital euro’s success will depend less on the core infrastructure alone and more on how it is embedded into everyday payment experiences.
According to the EPC, fintech firms are particularly well placed to bridge the gap between the Eurosystem’s settlement infrastructure and user-facing payment services. By integrating the digital euro into existing payment flows, wallets, and merchant tools, fintechs could help ensure that the CBDC feels familiar and useful from day one, rather than a parallel system competing with established methods.
A central theme of the report is cross-border efficiency. The EPC argues that a digital euro, combined with fintech-led instant payment solutions, could significantly reduce friction and costs for euro area transactions. This is especially relevant for small businesses and consumers who continue to face delays and fees when sending money across borders, despite years of regulatory efforts to harmonise payments within the single market.
Fintechs as service innovators
Beyond basic payments, the EPC highlights the potential for fintech companies to develop new services on top of the digital euro. These include programmable payments, automated invoicing, and conditional transfers, features that could streamline cash flow management for businesses and improve transparency for consumers. The report suggests that such functionality would help differentiate the digital euro from existing card and account-based payments, giving users clear reasons to adopt it.
At the same time, the EPC stresses that these innovations must be delivered within a carefully balanced market structure. Ensuring fair competition between banks and non-bank payment providers is identified as a key policy challenge. In particular, the report calls for equal and non-discriminatory access to the Eurosystem’s settlement infrastructure, warning that preferential treatment could undermine innovation and limit consumer choice.
The council also points to the need for regulatory clarity. Fintech participation, it argues, will only materialise at scale if technical standards, legal responsibilities, and access conditions are clearly defined well before a potential digital euro launch. Uncertainty in these areas could deter investment and slow ecosystem development.
In its conclusion, the EPC describes the digital euro as a potential catalyst for the next phase of European fintech growth. That outcome, however, is not guaranteed. It will depend on policymakers’ ability to combine a robust public payment backbone with an open, competitive environment in which private innovators can build services that Europeans actually want to use.
Related: ECB Digital Euro User Research Highlights Offline Payments, Lower Fees and Trust as Adoption Drivers