Vienna: Private companies and organisations have until 9 November 2026 to answer the European Central Bank’s innovation call for the digital euro pilot, according to a roundup of Governing Council decisions that the ECB published on 2 October. A separate call for e-commerce and mobile-commerce merchants closed on 27 October. The roundup was reviewed through a fetch summary, so readers should check the ECB page for exact wording.
The two calls show how the digital euro pilot is moving from design to practice. Merchants are the people who will accept the new money at checkout, while innovators are expected to test services that sit on top of it. Neither call, as far as the roundup shows, commits the Eurosystem to issuing a digital currency, and no launch date appears in the material reviewed.
The same roundup lists other payment work. In August the Governing Council approved an agreement for the Pontes pilot, which settles wholesale transactions in tokenised assets in central bank money, and the Market Infrastructure Board recommended a launch date of 21 September 2026. On 24 September the Council approved a feasibility assessment of linking the TIPS instant payment service with Brazil’s Pix system.
Oversight also appears. On 24 August the ECB adopted Decision ECB/2026/22 under Regulation (EU) 2025/1355, placing the Visa Europe payment system under Eurosystem oversight with the ECB as lead overseer. The decision was notified to the German branch of Visa Europe Limited. On 7 September the Eurosystem approved its response to the Commission’s consultation on the review of the crypto-asset rules known as MiCAR.
The banknote survey gives a sense of public engagement. The ECB reports nearly ten million responses, equal to 2.6 percent of the euro area population, collected between 23 July and 21 September 2026. The survey is a separate exercise from the digital euro pilot, yet the response rate shows that the central bank can reach a large audience when it asks.
For banks and payment firms, the calls matter for planning. Companies that want a say in the technical design should apply before 9 November, because the pilot will shape the standards on which later products rely. Merchants that missed the October deadline will have to wait for any future round.
The roundup does not say how many applicants the ECB expects or what the digital euro pilot will cost. Those details, along with the legal framework that Parliament and the Council are still negotiating, will decide whether the pilot becomes a launch pad or a long experiment.
