Digital Euro is on the way
The group is made up of 30 high-ranking financial professionals from organizations, including BBVA and CRIF among others to roll out the Digital Euro project.
Digital Euro
The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced the formation of a market advisory group with the purpose of exploring the infrastructure and trading potential of the digital euro from the perspective of industry leaders.
The group also aims to reveal the ideal function of the digital euro within the broad payments system of the European currency.
The group includes a number of well-known experts from the banking and financial sector, including Alexander Kurtevsky, Managing Director of Bankart; Antonio Macias Ficino, Head of Payments Department at BBVA; and Axel Schaefer, Payment Regulation and Innovation Specialist at The Ingka Group (Ikea), among others.
Initial consultation meetings are expected to start in November 2021 and will run on a monthly basis. The 30 members will serve in advisory roles and report their findings for consideration in the retail payments discussions within the European Retail Payments Council.
In mid-July this year, the European Central Bank’s Governing Council revealed plans to start an initial two-year research initiative into the feasibility of the digital euro project, assessing parameters, such as infrastructure creation, distribution and design, with the firm intent of “supplementing, not replacing, cash”.
Project expectations
ECB Governing Council Member Fabio Panetta expressed his high expectations for the success of the project: I am pleased that many high-quality experts from the private sector are ready to contribute to the Digital Euro project. Their expertise will facilitate the integration of the opinions of potential users and distributors about the digital euro during the investigation phase.”
Over the past year, the European Central Bank has taken progressive steps in its pursuit of a digital euro, an initiative that signifies its desire to foster growth within the digital asset space. However, the foundation has also, seemingly paradoxically, expressed concerns about the space's rapid progress, with its vice president claiming that the cryptocurrency has "very weak fundamentals" in an interview in May 2021.
In an interview with the World Economic Forum in early September, Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, examined the ambiguous rating of digital assets pegged to the dollar in the crypto space, concluding that stablecoins “pretend to be currency” but in fact, “are completely pegged to a physical currency.”
