(Finance) – The introduction of the digital euro it is “a topic that concerns the future of all of us”. This is what was stated by Chiara ScottiDeputy Director General of the Bank of Italy, on the occasion of the day in honor of Gaetano Colicigno, at the University of Florence.
“A project on which we are working with passion to achieve it in the best possible way”underlined the manager of Palazzo Koch, whose speech entitled “Digital Euro: one for all, all for one” clearly expresses the concept of the involvement of all stakeholders.
After talking about the multitude of opportunities where it can be used the digital euro – from coffee at the bar to the payment of the rent, up to the shared bill at the restaurant – Scotti explains that “we can think of the digital euro as a digital version of cashand, that is, a sovereign currency issued in electronic form. As such it would be a liability of the Eurosystem and would complement cash and other existing private solutions without replacing them”https://www.Finance.it/DettaglioNews/33_2024-11-20_TLB/.”It would therefore be a payment option in central bank money – he continues – equipped with harmonized rules, which would allow instant payments to be made at the point of sale, in e-commerce, between people and to the public administration through an app or a card. All this regardless of which euro area country you are in or which payment service provider you use.”
To explain what the digital euro is for, Scotti states that its introduction would allow “a profound integration of the economy real with the digital economy while maintaining some of the characteristics of cash, such as full freedom of use in the euro area and the obligation to accept” and “to remedy the fragmentation of the retail payments systemfilling the gap created by the absence of a harmonized pan-European solution for digital payments”.
The Bank of Italy manager also mentions i advantages of the digital euro: for residents of the euro area represents a tool at the service of our daily payment needs based, as I anticipated, on three pillars (inclusivity, privacy and freedom of choice); for all actors in the ecosystem there are positive externalities; for businesses It would guarantee efficiency and a reduction in costs.
Finally, the digital euro would bring also benefits the financial system. “European intermediaries could use the new form of money to offer low-cost payment services accepted throughout the euro area – underlines Scotti – and develop new value-added services for customers, thus strengthening their business model in the digital age and negotiating power in interactions with BigTechs”.
Scotti concluded by recalling that you have until November 29th to apply for the trial of the new digital currency and reiterating that this “opportunity” is aimed at everyone: not only to merchants, payment service providers and fintech companies, but also to research institutes, technical experts and universities.