Worldline develops offline P2P prototype for digital euro

By Gloria Methri

As one of five selected companies by the European Central Bank (ECB), Worldline has announced its participation in the offline digital euro front-end prototype testing, as part of the ECB investigation exercise.

The ECB has published its report which provides consolidated insights on the 5 prototypes, to test how design choices for the digital euro could be implemented, technically, and integrated into the existing European payments landscape.

Worldline delivered the person-to-person (P2P) fully offline payment use-case, allowing individuals to make payments using the digital euro, even when no party involved has network access.

The prototype’s success confirms the technological feasibility and industrial scaling potential of the offline scenario, contributing to a more resilient payment system. However, the prototypes will be discarded for the next phases of the project to ensure a level playing field for the entire industry.

With security playing an important role in offline transactions, Worldline developed a secure solution, based on a hardware tamper-proof secure element, embedded in a mobile phone. The end-to-end solution leverages cryptographic signatures to manage their specific critical financial operations linked to offline digital money.

Beyond the technological security stack, a regular online reconciliation of offline wallet data is enforced to allow effective mitigation of inherent risks and detect anomalies.

Finally, the prototype has been designed for smooth integration with offline solutions based on different technologies, to maximise market compatibility and adoption rate in a heterogenous offline wallet landscape.

Marc-Henri Desportes, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Worldline said “Worldline, as a European player and mastering the entire end-to-end payment value chain is very proud of the successful delivery of a person-to-person offline digital euro front-end prototype. The ability to pay without an Internet connection could contribute to the resilience and user convenience of a potential digital cash equivalent”.