Digital Euro and European Banking Updates

To expect a few things and to explain a few things.

So what did I announce?

I announced that on Monday, the twenty-first of September,

it will be the close of the survey that we have

launched

about three months ago now for Europeans, including Irish

people, please,

to express their views about the future banknotes that we will

have throughout Europe. This is Monday, end of the survey.

You still have a chance to actually express views as to which series

of banknotes you are looking forward to.

Announcement number one. Announcement number two, Monday,

twenty-first of September, we will launch Pontes.

Now, Pontes is,

to summarize it quickly for you, it's digital euro made

available for banks so that they can transact amongst

themselves using tokenized assets and

distributed ledger technology. Complicated on the face of it.

For them, it's rather simple, and they know that they can operate

faster without friction and that it's a journey

that they have to embark

upon. Not the end of the journey. We continue to work and

more will be developed, but it's beginning on Monday.

What did I indicate we expect?

Well, we expect a couple of things in

particular.

One is we very much hope that the piece of

legislation that is currently under debate concerning the digital

euro will see its completion and finalization

before the end of this year, and the earlier the better.

I'm very grateful to the Irish presidency, which has indicated its

determination to push this issue forward so we can move

in the

r-rollout of the pilot according to plan in

mid-'27.

The second one that I also flagged as something that needs

real work by the Parliament and the trilogue of Council

Parliament Commission is what I call Europe Inc,

which is the twenty-eighth regime, for which so many

startups, scale-ups, and companies in general

expect

simplification and easier way of incorporating

and moving across Europe.

And finally-