FRANKFURT (Reuters) -The European Central Bank said on Thursday it had picked a Portuguese startup focussed on artificial intelligence to help prevent frauds in its planned digital euro currency.

The contract with Feedzai, worth up to 237.3 million euros ($278.69 million), is one of several announced by the ECB on Thursday to advance a project that it sees as key for the euro zone’s financial autonomy from the United States.

Under it, Feedzai and its subcontractor PwC will provide an AI model for scoring digital euro payments by their fraud risk, based on any deviation from a customer’s typical behaviour, interactions and history.

This is aimed at helping payment service providers decide whether to approve a transaction in digital euros, essentially an exchange between electronic wallet

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