The news: The European Central Bank (ECB) inked agreements with European Card Payment Cooperation (ECPC), nexo standards, and the Berlin Group, laying the foundation for issuing a digital euro.

The tie-ups will support contactless tap to pay payments, ATM withdrawals, and payments using an alias like a phone number or email.

Why this matters: The digital euro is more likely to take off when it’s easiest for consumers to use—and tap to pay accessibility is an easy way to ignite growth. 

Dgital wallets will command 18% share at European in-store checkouts this year, per WorldPay’s Global Payments Report, but that’s forecast to jump to 26% by 2030—the strongest growth of any of the surveyed payment methods by over 10 percentage points. 

Emerging payments hopping on established consumer habits like contactless stand to piggyback on their growth curves.

Implications for US digital payments: As Europe invests in modernizing its digital payment systems, US stablecoin issuers can use similar tactics to make their rollouts more successful. Stablecoins don’t currently have broad retail usability and need digital wallet and tap to pay enablement for consumers before most consumers will even consider the payment method.