As part of its investigations into central bank digital currency (CBDC), the European Central Bank (ECB) plans to conduct “market research” of the digital euro in January 2023. Market research often focuses on customers , but here the goal is to collect information from CBDC Providers.

CBDC market participants will be targeted to explore all available technical design options over a six-week period. You are looking for technical information as well as cost and duration estimates.

While the responses will be treated confidentially, he plans to publish the findings in the second quarter of 2023.

The central bank wished to highlight that this has no impact on eligibility to purchase digital euros and should not be treated as shortlisting for subsequent tenders. No decision has yet been made on proceeding with a digital euro, although a positive outcome is expected when the time comes in October 2023.

In November, the central bank invited payment industry experts to present use case ideas for programmable money. And in its desire to be transparent about its processes, earlier this month the ECB published its current design features used for retail digital euro prototypes.

Separately, the Banque de France plans to run wholesale digital euro pilots next year, which will provide a CBDC for the DLT pilot regime for tokenized securities.