GNU Taler to seek e-money license from Germany's BaFin

Taler Operations AG, a new Bochum-based company, will apply to German regulator BaFin in the coming weeks for an e-money license to issue euro tokens under the GNU Taler protocol. If approved, the privacy-focused payment system could be used legally in German shops and later across the eurozone.

• Taler Operations AG is a subsidiary of Luxembourg-based Taler Systems SA
• The protocol runs over HTTP with blind signatures, no blockchain or mining
• Exchange, wallet and merchant backend are released under GPL and AGPL
• German bank GLS dropped out as the regulated issuer in January 2026