Pilot PSP (Payment Service Provider)
The entity actually building software against the pilot specs — this page is the anchor for anything implementation-relevant. A pilot PSP is a payment/e-money/credit institution selected via selection-and-participation-process to provide “pilot payment services” during the digital euro pilot (12 months, starting H2 2027).
Two roles (a PSP can be one or both)
- Distributing PSP — onboards and serves individual end users (consumers): DEAN issuance, alias management, funding/defunding, P2P/P2B payments, offboarding. See Annex 1.1 in src-call-annex-1-pilot-payment-services.
- Acquiring PSP — onboards and serves business end users (merchants): acceptance of beta digital euro, waterfall funding, refunds. See Annex 1.2 in src-call-annex-1-pilot-payment-services.
What a pilot PSP must build
- PSP backend infrastructure bridging its own systems with Eurosystem-provided components — see eurosystem for what’s provided vs. what the PSP builds.
- Integration with desp (via the DESP Access Gateway) for online operations.
- Integration of the Offline Distribution Service for offline-payments (funding, defunding, integrity checks) if offering offline use cases.
- Compliance with src-functional-requirements (the
FUR.##requirement catalogue) and the minimum UX requirements in the user journeys. - Participation in psp-feedback-framework and adherence to communication-guidelines.
Example — worked application
src-call-annex-2-rbi-application is a real completed selection questionnaire (Raiffeisen Bank International AG) — useful as a concrete worked example of how the eligibility and weighted-evaluation criteria get answered in practice (e.g. an acquiring-only PSP declining distributing-PSP criteria).
Related
ecb · eurosystem · ncb · desp · dean · alias · selection-and-participation-process · src-onboarding-overview