|
|
A digital euro would enable Europeans to use public money for digital payments throughout the euro area – just like they can use cash for physical payments.
Bringing central bank money into the digital era is a logical step as payments become increasingly digitalised. And this is critical for two main reasons.
First, we need to preserve the role of public money as the anchor of the payments system in order to ensure the smooth coexistence, the convertibility and the complementarity of the various forms that money takes. A strong anchor is needed to protect the singleness of money, monetary sovereignty and the integrity of the financial system.
Second, a digital euro would contribute to our strategic autonomy and economic efficiency by offering a European means of payment that could be used for any digital payment, would meet Europe’s societal objectives and would be based on a European infrastructure.
We will design the digital euro in a way that makes it attractive to users, who would like to use it to pay anywhere.[1] Giving legal tender status to the digital euro would make this possible, and it will be decided by you, the co-legislators. It would also help to achieve the network effects that are key to the success of payment solutions.[2]
We will also strive for the highest standards of privacy[3] and aim to contribute to financial inclusion and foster digital innovation, including as regards the programmability of payments.[4]
As for implementation, we are working to minimise the time to market, costs, risks and ecological footprint associated with the digital euro.
In particular, we will make sure that the digital euro builds on the experience of financial intermediaries in consumer-facing services, does not crowd out private means of payment, and preserves financial stability. And this is the aspect that I will focus on today: the potential impact of a digital euro on the financial system.
As we explore the design of the digital euro, we are not only looking at the payments landscape of today – we are in fact also considering how it might evolve in the future.
Imagine a world in which the central bank continues to offer only cash, but people increasingly prefer to pay digitally and the only digital forms of money available to them are private ones.[5]
In such a world, central bank money would lose its key role in payments, and it would not be possible to ensure the complementarity and convertibility of public and private money.[6] The entire monetary and financial sector would be deprived of its anchor – central bank money – and would be exposed to potential instability.[7]more at ECB