Skip to main content

Digital euro could take four years, says ECB president Christine Lagarde

The ECB will decide whether to proceed with digital euro pilots by mid-2021, Lagarde said.

It could be a while before European Union gets a central bank digital currency, if it gets one at all.

In a Wednesday interview with Bloomberg Television, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde laid out the complex decision-making process with which the bank will determine the future of a digital euro.

The ECB will soon release its analysis of eight thousand responses received from its digital euro consultation process. “That will be communicated to the European Parliament which is one of the key players as well as the Commission and the Council with which we operate,” she stated.

Based on that consultation, alongside the parliamentary work, the ECB’s Governing Council will decide whether the institution will begin experimenting with a CBDC by mid-2021.

Following an initial experimentation phase, the council would then hold a six-month or a one-year assessment on whether to roll out the digital euro, Lagarde stated.

“The whole process — let’s be realistic about it — will in my view take another four years, maybe a little more. But I would hope we can keep it within four years,” she said, adding:

“Because it’s a technical endeavor as well as a fundamental change because we need to make sure that we do it right. We owe it to Europeans, they need to feel safe and secure. They need to know that they are holding a central bank-backed [...] equivalent of a digital banknote. [...] We need to make sure that we’re not going to break any system, but enhance the system.”

Lagarde also mentioned that some financial intermediaries have expressed concerns about the ECB launching a CBDC. She said that these intermediaries will continue to co-exist with the new ecosystem as well as cash, which “will also continue to be available.” 

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the ECB launched a public consultation on a potential digital euro in October 2020. 



from https://ift.tt/39ubpCF
https://ift.tt/39woM5r

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

ENS DAO delegates offer perspective on DAO governance and decentralized identity

AlphaWallet CEO and Spruce co-founder talk about their roles as contributors to the Ethereum Name Service following the project's recent airdrop. Earlier this month, the Ethereum Name Service, or ENS, formed a decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, for the ENS community.  Cointelegraph spoke to two ENS DAO delegates who applied for the opportunity to represent the community and stay involved in the decision making process: Victor Zhang, CEO of AlphaWallet, an open source Ethereum wallet, and Gregory Rocco, co-founder of Spruce, a decentralized ID and data toolkit for developers. Zhang spoke about his experience as an external contributor to ENS and an early supporter since 2018. Zhang initially sought to help ENS by offering Alpha Wallet as a user-friendly tool for  resolving .eth names and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. Essentially, if a user inputs an .eth name in the AlphaWallet, it will show the wallet address, and vice versa using reverse resolution. Alpha...

How Social Platform Chingari is Using Web 3.0 to Transform the Traditional Way We Use Social Media

The world is changing. This isn’t news to anyone, but sometimes it is nice to realize that—contrary to news headlines—not all the change is bad.  In fact, the last decade has seen so much innovation and so many improvements to technology that even 2015 seems like a different world.  Internet speeds, connecting with anyone globally (for free), and our ability to reach large groups of people without a middleman is nothing short of revolutionary. When it comes to technology evolution, this often happens with different iterations.  Once a system is mature, there’s a better idea of what we would like to change and improve.  We go back to the drawing board, target our creative minds at the issues, and create a new version that has evolved to better meet our needs.  The Internet has followed this model since its inception, evolving through three distinct stages.  We are only at the cusp of the third stage, called Web 3.0, with technologies such as blockchain and ...

Osprey sues Grayscale for misrepresenting likelihood of GBTC ETF approval

Osprey alleges its only competitor on the BTC OTC trust asset market gained its 99.5% market share by misrepresenting the likelihood of its trust becoming an ETF. Digital asset manager Osprey Funds filed suit against Grayscale Investments in Connecticut Superior Court on Jan. 30, alleging violation of the state’s Unfair Trade Practices Act. The suit concerns Grayscale advertising and promotion of the Bitcoin ( BTC ) exchange-traded fund (ETF) it is seeking to create.  Osprey stated in the suit that it is the only competitor to Grayscale on the over-the-counter traded Bitcoin trust asset management market, and Grayscale maintained its leading position through deceit: “Only because of its false and misleading advertising and promotion has Grayscale been able to maintain to date approximately 99.5% market share in a two-participant market despite charging more than four times the asset management fee that Osprey charges for its services.” Specifically, Osprey alleged that Graysc...