CGD, BCP and Unicre Are Picked for the ECB's Digital Euro Pilot Starting in 2027

Three Portuguese financial names have been chosen to help build the future of European money. Caixa Geral de Depósitos (the state-owned bank, or CGD), Banco Comercial Português (Millennium bcp, or BCP) and the card specialist Unicre have been selected by the European Central Bank (ECB) to take part in testing the digital euro, according to Expresso.

The trio are among 36 payment service providers picked from more than 50 applicants, drawn from 16 of the euro area's 21 member states. The line-up spans traditional banks and newer transaction platforms — from Italy's UniCredit to the fintech Revolut — and Portugal's inclusion puts its lenders inside a project the ECB frames as a matter of European sovereignty.

What the digital euro is

The digital euro would be a central bank digital currency (CBDC): an electronic form of cash issued directly by the ECB rather than a commercial bank. It is intended to be legal tender, free for basic everyday use, and usable both online and offline — a euro you could hold in a bank app or dedicated wallet and spend with a tap, even without a connection. To stop it from draining deposits out of commercial banks, holdings are expected to be capped.

Crucially for the participating institutions, the digital euro is not meant to replace banks but to run through them. CGD, BCP and Unicre would be the front-end that ordinary customers actually touch, testing how features such as offline payments and conditional transfers work in practice before any public launch.

A long runway

Nobody will be paying for a bica in digital euros any time soon. The ECB plans a 12-month pilot beginning in the second half of 2027, with a potential first issuance only around 2029 — and even that hinges on European lawmakers adopting the digital euro regulation, a step the European Parliament recently backed but which still faces trilogue negotiations between EU institutions.

The political momentum behind the project has hardened as Europe frets about its dependence on American payment rails such as Visa and Mastercard, and, more recently, about the leverage that dependence hands Washington under Donald Trump. Backers cast a sovereign European payment system as insurance against being cut off or squeezed.

For Portuguese consumers, the practical upshot is still years away and, for now, largely invisible. But the choice of CGD, BCP and Unicre means the country's banks will have a hand in shaping how the digital euro looks and feels — and a head start if and when it finally reaches wallets.