Digital Euro in a Box

Digital Euro in a Box is a spec-conformant accelerator for PSPs and banks preparing to integrate the digital euro — a working sandbox today, not a slide deck about one. Built on the official ECB pilot specification (Appendix 2.F) and aligned to all 11 published milestones, it is equally useful whether you are in the Eurosystem pilot or preparing your stack for go-live.

digital-euro
What's in the box

The five pillars

A working sandbox today, not a slide deck about one. Every feature comes with a phone mockup of the user experience and the backend flow. Every test case maps to the ECB pilot specification. Every milestone is on the roadmap.

Pillar 01
Pre-built modules

Onboarding, alias management, liquidity, P2P, e-commerce, m-commerce, NFC proximity, offline payments — every feature comes with a phone mockup of the UX and the backend flow, so teams build on proven foundations from day one.

pillar 02
QA routines & E2E test cases

BDD scenarios aligned with the official ECB pilot specification — Appendix 2.F · End-to-End Process Flows. The same criteria the Eurosystem uses to test pilot participants are the criteria your production integration will eventually be measured against.

pillar 03
Reference architecture

Maps every milestone, feature and integration point — from DESP connectivity through NFC proximity payments — so teams plan, build and validate with confidence.

pillar 04
DESP sandbox

A simulation of the Digital Euro Service Platform built from the published ECB technical requirements — a realistic environment for integration testing before official DESP access is granted.

pillar 05
Implementation roadmap

Pre-mapped to the ECB Pilot Preparation, Development and Operational phases — and reusable as a delivery plan for institutions outside the pilot, since the feature scope (P2P, e-commerce, m-commerce, NFC, offline, funding, defunding, refunds) is the same scope every PSP must eventually support.

Plus!
D1 risk & resilience

Pre-mapped operational-resilience posture aligned to DORA expectations and the rulebook D1 workstream — ready for supervisory review.

Inside the sandbox

Fund wallet

Every feature in the box has both sides shown — the user experience your customer sees, and the backend flow that delivers it. Here is the Fund Wallet feature: the end user picks an amount, the backend posts to the distributing-PSP liquidity service, the holding-limit check runs, the DESP credits the DCA, and the holdings increment.

Conformance

Test cases aligned to ECB Appendix 2.F

Pilot PSP implementations will be tested against the scenarios in Appendix 2.F. Pilot in a Box ships with a BDD suite that mirrors them exactly, re-run on every commit.

fund-wallet-1
Readiness

Why act now, pilot or not

Pilot selection decides your timeline — not whether the work is coming. The rulebook, the integration surface and the supervisory bar are all moving now, and they apply to every euro-area PSP. Starting before you have to is what turns scheme go-live into a plan instead of a scramble.

The scheme rulebook, the D1 operational-resilience workstream and the DORA expectations they sit alongside are converging now — and none of that work is gated on pilot selection.

Wero

European Payments Initiative - Wero

We have shipped pan-European payments integration before — and learned where the rulebooks bend. Critical Software has delivered Wero implementation work for a participating institution since the scheme’s early build phase (client confidential). Wero is now live across Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, backed by 16 founding bank shareholders.

Wero is not the digital euro, and the digital euro is not Wero. But the underlying pattern is the same: building a pan-European payment scheme on behalf of multiple bank intermediaries, against a rulebook that is still moving.

The lessons from Wero apply whether you are in the digital euro pilot or preparing for scheme go-live — the rulebook moves, the conformance bar holds, and the back end has to be resourced before the front end is ready to show.

16

Founding bank shareholders across Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

1100+

Members across the consumer and merchant side.

Benefits

What our intermediaries get

Readiness in weeks, not quarters

A defensible digital-euro integration plan in weeks, not quarters — backed by a working sandbox you can demo to your board and your regulator.

Scheme changes that don’t reset your build

A BDD conformance harness aligned to Appendix 2.F runs on every commit, so when the rulebook moves you catch the gap immediately.

Integration-ready before DESP access opens

A realistic Digital Euro Service Platform environment, built from the published ECB technical requirements. Validate integrations against the DESP sandbox now — so when DESP access opens, whether under the pilot or at scheme go-live, you are already working.

Supervisory review, already prepared

A D1-mapped controls register aligned to DORA means your operational-resilience posture is documented and review-ready before anyone asks.

A delivery squad that actually ships

A small, dedicated team works alongside your existing engineers — kept outside day-to-day product roadmaps, which is where this kind of work actually succeeds.

Delivery that stays inside the EU

Portugal-engineered, EU-resident and GDPR-native — for institutions whose digital-euro work must remain within the Union.

Roadmap

Aligned to the ECB pilot — and to scheme go-live

Three phases. 11 milestones. Pilot in a Box maps every published milestone to a delivery checkpoint and every required feature to a pre-built module — referenced to the ECB pilot Appendices and Annexes.

Drag or Navigate

M1

Pilot PSPs receive documentation and begin development activities.

July 2026

M3

User testing of the scope required for the start of the pilot

M2

Onboarding to DESP testing environment

M4

Pilot PSPs complete the development required for the pilot

M5

User testing and DESP backend integration finalised

M6

Pilot PSPs successfully onboarded to DESP production environment

April 2027

M11

Pilot PSPs start offering support to end-users; PSP feedback to NCBs begins

M7

Pilot PSPs complete development for the pilot start

M8

Business end-users onboarded before the end of the development phase

M9

Pilot PSPs start onboarding Individual end-users

M10

Pilot payment services live: P2P; E-commerce; M-commerce; NFC proximity; Offline; Funding; Defunding; Refunds

July 2027

End

Pilot operational phase concludes

Not in the pilot? The same readiness path applies — only the timeline is yours to set.

01

Rulebook: Align to the digital euro scheme rulebook and the D1 operational-resilience expectations that sit alongside DORA.

02

Integration: Build against the DESP sandbox: alias management, holding limits, funding and defunding, offline capability, NFC proximity.

03

Conformance: Validate every flow with the BDD harness aligned to Appendix 2.F, re-run against each rulebook revision.

04

Production go-live: Onboard end users and go live across P2P, e-commerce, m-commerce, NFC, offline, funding, defunding and refunds.

Book a briefing

Thirty minutes with your platform and architecture leads, walking through the sandbox live against your current state. You leave with a one-page gap assessment against the digital euro scheme rulebook and a proposed scoping engagement — pilot-track or production-track depending on your situation. No proposal needed to take the first call.