The European Central Bank said that five firms would help “develop potential user interfaces for the digital euro.”

“The aim of this prototyping exercise is to test how well the technology behind a digital euro integrates with prototypes developed by companies,” the ECB on 16 September. The ECB will use the prototypes to process “simulated transactions”.

However, the five test interfaces will remain purely experimental for the moment and will not be specifically designed for use when the electronic currency eventually enters circulation. “There are no plans to re-use the prototypes in the subsequent phases of the digital euro project,” the ECB said.

The five companies were identified out of 54 expressions of interest submitted in April.

Amazon was selected for the e-commerce payments prototype. The other four outfits were Caixabank, to test peer-to-peer online payments; Worldline, for peer-to-peer offline payments; EPI for point of sale payments initiated by the payer; and Nexi, for point of sale payments initiated by the payee.

“We are excited to work with the European Central Bank on their digital euro prototyping exercise,” Max Bardon, vice president of Amazon Payments, said in an emailed statement. “Amazon believes the future will be built on new technologies that enable modern, fast and inexpensive payments, and we look forward to building these innovations to help improve how customers will pay in the future.”

Amazon has roughly 4,000 employees in Luxembourg, its EU headquarters.

‘Investigation phase’

The digital euro could eventually “be like euro banknotes, but digital,” the central bank has . “A digital euro would not replace cash, but rather complement it. A digital euro would give people an additional choice about how to pay and make it easier to do so, contributing to accessibility and inclusion.”

The ECB is currently a two year investigation phase, which will be completed in October 2023.