Glossary
Funding
Funding is the process of adding digital euro to an account, either from a linked non-digital euro payment account or from cash at an ATM or branch.
Definition
Funding
Funding is how digital euro gets into an account. It is the deliberately boring plumbing underneath the more talked-about reverse waterfall.
Two sources
A user can fund their digital euro account from either:
- A non-digital euro payment account held at the scheme participant of the user's choice.
- Cash, manually, via an ATM or a scheme participant's branch — where the participant offers that as part of its non-digital euro payment services.
The cash route matters more than it first appears. It is what keeps the digital euro reachable for people who are not comfortable living inside a banking app, and it preserves a direct line between physical and digital central bank money.
Availability expectations
Funding from a non-digital euro payment account must be available 24 hours a day, on every calendar day of the year. There is no weekend, no cut-off, no batch window.
Funding from cash is different: it follows the service hours of the ATM or branch, which is simply a fact of physical infrastructure.
It may involve two PSPs
A funding operation can span two institutions — the PSP providing the digital euro account and the PSP providing the non-digital euro payment account need not be the same. Do not assume both legs live inside your own bank.
Manual and automatic
Funding can be done manually, or automatically at a pre-defined moment in time, or when a user-defined threshold is breached. That threshold is something the user sets — it is explicitly other than the holding limit, which has its own automatic mechanism.
The distinction is worth holding on to:
- User-defined threshold → the user's own top-up rule.
- Holding limit breach → reverse waterfall (funding) and waterfall (defunding), which are scheme mechanics rather than user preferences.
The opposite operation — taking digital euro out of the account — is defunding.
Sources
Related reading
Reverse waterfall
Reverse waterfall automatically converts money from a linked account into digital euro when your balance is too low to cover a payment.
Defunding
Defunding is the process of taking digital euro out of an account, either to a linked non-digital euro payment account or out as cash at an ATM or branch.
Holding limit
The holding limit caps how many digital euro you may hold. The amount for individuals is still undecided; businesses have a holding limit of zero.
Waterfall
Waterfall automatically converts digital euro above your holding limit into commercial bank money on your linked account, so payments are not rejected.