Overview

• The European Central Bank signed conditional framework agreements across five core components, advancing technical preparations for a potential digital euro.
• Feedzai, with PwC as subcontractor, was selected to provide a centralized AI service that returns real‑time fraud risk scores for each transaction to support payment providers' decisions.
• The Feedzai framework has an estimated four‑year value of €79.1 million with a cap of €237.3 million, and the ECB says no funds will be disbursed until the next phase formally begins.
• Giesecke+Devrient was ranked first for the offline payment solution designed to enable cash‑like, private transactions without connectivity, with a second provider to be announced.
• Other selected firms will cover alias lookup, a wallet app and SDK, and secure exchange of payment information, with first‑ and second‑ranked providers designated for resilience and continuity.