The ecb could be ready to issue a digital euro within 4 years, a senior official said. By jackschickler
A digital euro could be issued by the European Union within four years, a senior official from the European Central Bank has said, with peer-to-peer payments potentially among the first uses.
The timeline for the central bank digital currency has been pushed back and forward due to concerns over Russia’s war in Ukraine and the rise of private stablecoins like Facebook’s now-abandoned Libra. “The idea would be that, let’s say, four years from now, we will be ideally ready to issue the digital euro,” Fabio Panetta, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, told a Monday event at the National College of Ireland. “It’s a very complex project, never done before … I’m a bit optimistic that in four years’ time we will be prepared.”
Peer-to-peer payments, allowing transactions among friends, could be the first testing ground for the new technology before it spreads to other areas like payments in stores or online, Panetta suggested. “A P2P payment solution that covers a broad set of users across the entire euro area could provide fertile ground for the adoption of a digital euro,” he said, citing research that showed the application would have widest take-up early on.