The ongoing development of the digital euro marks a pivotal moment for Europe’s monetary and payment ecosystems, raising fundamental questions about sovereignty, infrastructure design, and the roles of public and private actors. In this webcast, Prof. Dr. Volker Brühl, Managing Director, Center for Financial Studies at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, and James von Moltke, President, Chief Financial Officer and responsible for the Asset Management at Deutsche Bank, explore the preliminary findings of the digital euro project and discuss its implications for financial institutions, payment service providers, and European strategic autonomy.
Key questions addressed in the discussion include:
- How do the digital euro’s current design features, use cases, and project timeline shape its potential adoption?
- To what extent can the digital euro strengthen monetary sovereignty and reduce Europe’s dependence on non-European payment providers?
- What economic incentives are required for banks and payment service providers to support distribution and integration of the digital euro?
- How do the legislative process and emerging rulebook influence the technical and operational model?
- In what ways could the digital euro be embedded into existing EU payment infrastructures, and what role should private sector initiatives such as EPI and Bizum play?
- What are the key opportunities, risks, and financial-stability considerations?
- How should Europe position itself in light of the global rise of USD-denominated stablecoins, and what is the role of tokenized commercial bank money and regulated stablecoins in a future European payments roadmap?
The idea is that we establish a digital currency which is trustworthy, efficient, innovative, and has the status of a legal tender.
A currency requires trust, it requires low friction cost for the users, it requires a degree of network-effect. These factors represent important impediments or challenges that the digital euro needs to overcome.
The basic objective is to make sure that the transmission of monetary policy decision is ensured in the digital age as well. The second objective is to reduce the dependency on global payment infrastructure poviders, which are mainly based in the United States. The digital autonomy in terms of infrastrcture can be improved to a certain extent, but it will not be complete.
The retail digital euro should not be introduced as a standalone, closed-loop payment scheme. It should be interoperable and compatible with other private digital money, such as commercial bank money, and it should be integrated with mainstream payment systems to ensure its success.