Which companies will launch the digital euro and how to make money from it

In autumn, the European Central Bank (ECB) will launch the Pontes project - a platform for settlements in tokenized assets. It should link blockchain platforms with the Eurosystem's existing payment infrastructure. Pontes, together with the introduction of the digital euro, will be a step towards the EU's "digital sovereignty", on which the regulator and commercial banks will spend around €5.5 billion until 2029. A further €320m will be allocated annually to maintain the system.

The digital euro is not an asset that can be invested in directly. However, more than a dozen companies with which the ECB has already signed framework agreements will create a complex infrastructure for it. Oninvest has studied which of the public companies may receive contracts in the near future and whether it is worth investing in them

Nexi is a major Italian acquiring and payment processing operator. The Group operates around 3 million POS terminals and manages approximately 140 million cards in more than 25 countries.

The company is involved in the creation of a unified European digital wallet Wero - a potential alternative to the American Apple Pay and Google Pay. The service will allow users to make purchases and transfer money directly from account to account between banks in different EU countries. As part of the digital euro pilots, Nexi is testing scenarios in which the payment is initiated by the merchant - for example, invoicing and recurring debits.

In fact, Nexi is one of the key candidates for the role of European transaction processor as opposed to global US giants Visa and MasterCard.

Nexi reported revenues of €821.4 million in the first quarter of 2026 - just 1% growth year-on-year. More than half of the revenue comes from acquiring and point-of-sale services, with another third coming from services for issuing banks. Nexi's EBITDA rose 2.6% to €396.5 million. At the same time, net debt at the end of the quarter was about €4.86 billion and the net debt/EBITDA ratio was 2.5.

Nexi's stock is currently trading around €4 per share, almost a third below Ma 2025 levels and almost half its early 2024 level. Analysts' estimates on the stock fluctuate between "buy" and "hold." However, in spring 2026, Goldman Sachs downgraded Nexi to neutral and cut its target price from €6 to €3.5, citing its high debt burden and the business' sensitivity to rates.

Nevertheless, several private equity funds have recently shown interest in buying Nexi. In particular, the British CVC Capital Partners is studying the possibility of buying out the group for about €9 bln with a subsequent delisting. However, state bank Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which owns about 19% of Nexi, refuses to sell its asset in order not to lose Italian control over the key payment infrastructure.

Participation in the digital euro is important in terms of the perception of the regulatory and political "status" of the company, but is not a key factor in terms of real earnings, argues Laurent Lamanier, deputy CEO of the analytical agency AlphaValue, in a commentary for Oninvest. According to him, the digital euro project is good for the investment story: the company remains significant for the EU as an infrastructure player.

French Worldline is one of the largest payment operators in the eurozone. According to the company, its payment solutions are used by more than 1.4 million merchants in 170 countries.

Worldline acts as a key partner of the ECB: through its subsidiary equensWorldline, the company is involved in pilots to integrate the digital euro into existing infrastructure, including offline payments and P2P transfers. Worldline could become the foundation for a European payment "engine" that would accept the digital euro in the same terminals and online cash desks that currently handle Visa and Mastercard transactions.

In the first quarter of 2026, Worldline's revenue decreased by 0.5% to €831 million, with nearly 80% coming from its point-of-sale and acquiring business and around 20% from its banking and financial services (Financial Services) business.

Worldline launched a €500 million additional capitalization this spring, letting in big European players BNP Paribas, Bpifrance, Crédit Agricole and Crédit Mutuel, which now control about 37% of the shares. This has reduced the net debt to EBITDA ratio from 2.3× to 1.7×, and the ratio should fall to around 1.6× after receiving around €600m from asset sales in 2026.

In June 2025, the company found itself at the center of a scandal: a consortium of European media published an investigation that Worldline had turned a blind eye for years to the fraud of some customers, including high-risk online merchants in the field of gambling and adult services. Following the publications, the company's shares plummeted more than 40% in two days, and Belgian prosecutors opened a case of possible money laundering. Under pressure from investors and regulators, Worldline launched an external audit, tightened compliance procedures, reduced its portfolio of high-risk clients and almost completely renewed its board. Worldline did not respond to Oninvest's questions.

Worldline shares are now trading around €0.26 - near historic lows, with a market capitalization of about €600 million. The consensus of analysts, according to MarketScreener, is "hold" with an average target price of about €0.38 to €0.40.

Independent investor Phoenix van Langerode, who specializes in deep dissection of undervalued European companies, calls Worldline a "broken European payments champion" that has morphed into a company "for patient value investors" after scandals and a collapse in its stock price. He estimates that a planned program of asset sales with expected net inflows of €590-640 million and additional capitalization gives Worldline a few years to prove that the "reputationally cleaned up" core business is still worth saving.

Officially, the ECB does not comment on the situation, but Oninvest's source close to the regulator noted that the bank usually conducts a comprehensive check of bidders and potential partners. Now there are no official court decisions against the company, so the ECB acts in accordance with its procurement rules.

According to Laurent Lamanier of France's AlphaValue, Worldline's participation in the digital euro project could have a significant positive effect on the company's revenue and its reputation as a strategic partner for the EU.

Capgemini is one of Europe's largest IT consulting and outsourcing holdings. The company works with banks, regulators and government agencies in more than 50 countries. Clients include around 85% of the top 200 public companies on the Forbes Global 2000 list. In the digital euro project, its German division Capgemini Deutschland will be responsible for offline payments in a consortium with Giesecke+Devrient and Nexi. The partners will have to develop and test interfaces and infrastructure for digital euro transactions without an internet connection and integrate this offline module into the overall project architecture.

In the first quarter of 2026, the group's revenue reached almost €6 billion, up 7% year-on-year. The main growth drivers were projects in cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence, consulting and managed services for banks, telecoms and the public sector. The volume of new orders exceeded €6 bln (+6.2% YoY), and management expects revenue growth of 6.5-8.5% in 2026.

The market is cautious about Capgemini's prospects due to the development of artificial intelligence. UBS downgraded its recommendation on the stock from "buy" to "neutral" in April 2026 and lowered its target price from €150 to €110. According to the investment bank, the proliferation of generative AI and agent-based systems will slow the company's organic growth, and investors may shy away from such players for some time, despite the attractive valuation.

Laurent Lamanier from AlphaValue agrees with this thesis. He notes that investors have already "heavily sold" Capgemini securities: part of the market is convinced that agent-based AI systems will soon be able to do many tasks directly, without engaging consultants to implement new solutions. At the same time, the expert adds, given the scale of the company, the impact of the digital euro project on its revenue is unlikely to be large.

In addition to the three "anchors" that will hold the digital euro together, a second echelon of public companies is forming around it. Among them are the international IT consulting company Accenture and Spain's CaixaBank.

Accenture is involved in the digital currency projects of central banks around the world and is among the ECB's partners in the innovative digital euro platform. The company's securities are trading at about $180 per share.

In an April survey, UBS analysts named Accenture as one of the main beneficiaries of the growing demand for AI and cloud solutions. They note that a steady flow of orders and high business margins support the company's long-term investment appeal. That said, some of the risks associated with AI's impact on the consulting market have already been factored into the quotes, according to analysts. In Morningstar's March breakdown, Accenture's shares were called undervalued.

Spanish CaixaBank was involved in the digital euro project back at the stage of testing ECB prototypes. The bank is actively developing the Spanish payment service Bizum, which in early May announced its entry into the retail segment and intends to compete with Visa and Mastercard in the local market

CaixaBank's shares have risen almost 59% over the past year (to about €11 per paper) - the best result among European banks. Now more than half of analysts - 18 out of 31 - recommend buying shares of the credit organization: 10 - to hold, and 3 - to sell.

Barclays describes CaixaBank as a bank with high profitability without excessive risk, with predictable net interest income and good asset and capital quality. Analysts raised their target price on the stock from around €10.8 to €11+. However, the recommendation on the securities is neutral.

UBS assesses the Spanish bank in a similar way. In their opinion, CaixaBank remains a "premium" asset in Spanish retail, but the space for further profit revision and revaluation of quotations is limited: the target price of the Spanish bank's securities is €10.85 per unit, the recommendation on the shares is neutral.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor