Glossary
CPACE
CPACE is the standard that applies to digital euro contactless NFC payments at the point of interaction, rather than a proprietary card-scheme protocol.
Definition
CPACE
CPACE is the contactless piece of the digital euro's technology stack. When a digital euro payment happens by tapping at the point of interaction, CPACE is the standard that applies for NFC.
Where it fits
The digital euro's technical choices are consistently "use the European standard that already exists":
| Layer | Choice |
|---|---|
| Integration APIs | JSON RESTful APIs |
| Data dictionary | ISO 20022-based |
| API patterns | Berlin Group style |
| Contactless / NFC | CPACE |
Read that table as a whole and the strategy is obvious. Nothing in it is invented for the digital euro. Every layer is a standard European payments teams have already met.
Why this is a deliberate choice
A central bank could have specified a bespoke contactless protocol. Choosing an existing standard instead does two things.
It reduces the integration burden — an acquiring PSP is not learning a novel protocol to accept digital euro at a terminal.
And it reduces dependence on proprietary card-scheme technology. That is not an incidental benefit. European payments strategy has long been concerned with reliance on infrastructure controlled outside the EU, and a contactless standard that is not owned by a card scheme is directly responsive to that concern.
Not the same as offline
CPACE covers contactless payment at the point of interaction. That is a different question from the offline digital euro, where value sits on a secure element and moves device-to-device without any connection. Both involve NFC; they are not the same thing.
Sources
Related reading
Offline digital euro
The offline digital euro stores value on a secure element on your device and pays device-to-device over NFC, with cash-like privacy and no connection.
Secure element
A secure element is a tamper-proof chip that stores cryptographic data and runs secure applications. It holds offline digital euro value on your device.
Acquiring PSP
An acquiring PSP serves business digital euro users — managing merchant accounts and the acceptance solutions through which businesses take payments.
Alias
An alias is a pseudonymous identifier — such as a phone number — standing in for a digital euro account, so you can be paid without revealing your DEAN.