Digital Euro: Cash, Privacy and Central Bank Control

The digital euro is on the move.

Yesterday, the governing council of the ECB approved

the opening of the preparation phase.

It will be a journey, and we will walk the journey together with

the legislator.

All European institutions will be involved to make sure that

Europe is equipped with the currency of the future.

Cash is here to stay.

You will have all options, cash and

digital cash.

So what does it mean for you?

For consumers, it will be free and easy to use

everywhere in the Euro area.

All of that, of course, is subject to the legislative process.

Cash or digital,

the choice will be yours.

Your euro,

your choice.

All our analysis on CBDC, in particular for the use

of general-- to the general use, uh, we tend to

establish the equivalence with cash.

Uh, and there is a huge difference there.

Uh, for example, in cash, uh, we don't know, for example, who's using

a one hundred dollar bill today. We don't know who is using a one thousand

peso bill today. A, a, a key difference in-- with the

CBDC is the central bank will have

absolute control on the rules and regulations that

will determine the use of that, uh, expression of

central bank liability, and also we will have the

technology to enforce that. Those are-- those two

issues are extremely important, and that makes a

huge difference with respect to what, uh, to what cash

is.

Uh-

You know, the, the, the digital euro is going to have a

limited amount of control. There will be control. You're right.

You're completely right.

Mm-hmm.

We are considering whether for very small amounts, you know,

anything that is around three hundred, four hundred euros, we could have a

mechanism where there is zero control.

But that could be dangerous. The terrorist attacks on France,

uh, back, uh, ten years ago were entirely

financed by those very small anonymous credit cards that you

can recharge in total anonymity.

Mm-hmm.