Alex Trelinski
THE Bank of Spain will allow a digital euro token to be tested by Malaga-based payment gateway firm Monei.
It will be the first use of a digital euro in Europe.
The EURM token will be limited to a small group of people during the initial testing phase.
Users will provide feedback in order to sort out any problems and transactions will only be conducted within Spain.
Among the practical uses of the digital currency is that a merchant for example could digitise and schedule daily payments to suppliers according to what is needed on a particular day.
Monthly payments could be made in daily instalments to spread costs and employees could get a choice of whether they get paid daily, weekly, biweekly or each month.
Monei CEO, Alex Saiz, said: “The product is now ready and we will start marketing it immediately once the controlled tests are finished.”
In order to get the EURM deposited into their account, participants in the pilot will be required to enter their phone number, verify their identity using video identification and deposit real euros into their wallet through the Bizum payment app.
All euros deposited will be automatically switched for digital euros, which account holders can then send to other individuals or registered companies taking part in the pilot.
All funds will be kept in two designated bank accounts with BBVA and CaixaBank, and participants will be able to exchange digital euros for physical euros at any time.
The pilot testing phase is scheduled to last for six to twelve months.
Once the success of the pilot has been evaluated, the Bank of Spain will make a ruling on whether to allow Monei to roll out tokens to the general public.
