Bank of Spain13 October 2026Intervención DG de Operaciones, Mercados y Sistemas de Pago

DG Operations, Markets and Payment Systems. An introduction to the digital euro

The Neural Herald summary, AI-generated

Presentation by Juan Ayuso, Director General of Operations, Markets and Payment Systems, on the digital euro: a digital form of cash, issued by the Eurosystem, with legal tender status, free for individuals and distributed by financial institutions. He justifies it on grounds of European autonomy, as more than 60% of card purchases depend on Visa and Mastercard.

Key points

Intermediated model: the Eurosystem runs the platform and institutions manage the accounts.
A dedicated IBAN-like account starting with EU, with aliases and linkable to a payment account for automatic transfers.
Prioritises person-to-person, point-of-sale and e-commerce payments.

Who is affected

Financial institutions, retailers, payment providers and citizens.

Plain-language version

A Bank of Spain official explains the digital euro: like cash but on your phone, issued by the central bank, free for individuals and handled through your bank. It will have its own IBAN-style account number starting with EU. The reason: over 60% of card purchases depend on Visa and Mastercard.

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Summary produced with artificial intelligence from the official publication. It may contain errors: always check the original document.

DG Operations, Markets and Payment Systems. An introduction to the digital euro

Key points

Who is affected

Plain-language version

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