Berlin Group
European open payment standards initiative developing technical specifications for retail payment systems; signed digital euro standards agreement with the ECB.
Last refreshed: 27 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Is the Berlin Group's open-banking framework the account-access layer that makes the digital euro distribute-able without US tech infrastructure?
Timeline for Berlin Group
Signed standards agreement with ECB to enable digital euro payment processing
European Tech Sovereignty: Digital euro stays on its own track- What is the Berlin Group in European payments?
- The Berlin Group is a pan-European payment-industry initiative that develops the NextGenPSD2 open-banking API framework, allowing third-party fintechs and payment providers to access bank accounts under PSD2. It signed an ECB Digital Euro standards agreement in April 2026.Source: ECB
- What is NextGenPSD2 and why does it matter for the digital euro?
- NextGenPSD2 is the Berlin Group's open API specification for account access under PSD2. For the Digital Euro it provides a European-governed standard for how payment-service providers connect to the ECB's central-bank ledger, avoiding proprietary US-stack APIs.Source: event
- How does the Berlin Group's digital euro agreement work?
- The April 2026 ECB-Berlin Group standards agreement commits NextGenPSD2 API specifications as reference frameworks for the Digital Euro's account-access infrastructure, allowing licensed PSPs to distribute digital euros to users via European-governed API connections.Source: ECB
Background
The Berlin Group is a pan-European payment-industry initiative focused on open-banking standards, best known for its NextGenPSD2 framework, which defines API specifications that allow third-party payment-service providers and fintechs to access bank accounts under the EU's revised Payment Services Directive (PSD2). Its membership covers European banks, payment processors and fintech associations working toward a common technical foundation for account-to-account payments, data access and Open Finance.
On 24 April 2026 the Berlin Group signed a technical standards agreement with the ECB alongside ECPC and nexo standards, contributing its open-banking API specifications as a reference framework for Digital Euro infrastructure. The Digital Euro involves not just card-payment terminals but also account-based access flows, where Open Finance standards defining how payment-service providers connect to a central-bank ledger entry point are directly relevant. The Berlin Group's NextGenPSD2 work covers precisely this layer.
The group's significance for Digital Euro sovereignty is at the account-access layer: if the ECB's Digital Euro distribution goes through licensed payment-service providers (the banks and fintechs that will distribute digital euros to end users), those providers need standardised API connections to the ECB ledger. Berlin Group specifications are the European-governed alternative to building those connections on proprietary US-tech-stack APIs. The April agreement formalises their role in that infrastructure.
