Piero Cipollone: Cash and the digital euro: two sides of the same coin
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Statement by Piero Cipollone before the European Parliament's ECON committee on cash and the digital euro. He calls for the trilogues on the single currency package to be concluded before the end of the year and details preparations for the pilot and for the banknote redesign.
Key points
- Adoption of the single currency package expected by the end of 2026 under the One Europe, One Market roadmap; a delay could postpone the digital euro
- Pontes (settlement of tokenised transactions in central bank money) launched in September with 18 participants; on 2 November it settled the ESM's first digital bond, worth €1bn
- Digital euro pilot from the second half of 2027 with 36 selected payment service providers; final selection of merchants in early 2027
- New wave of the innovation platform (conditional payments, AI) from January to June 2027
- Survey on the design of new banknotes with almost 10 million responses; Governing Council decision towards the end of the year; new banknotes in the early 2030s
- Support for robust rules on mandatory acceptance of and access to cash
Who is affected
Banks and payment service providers, merchants, EU legislators
Deadlines
Trilogues: target end of 2026. Pilot: H2 2027. Banknote design: decision towards the end of 2026
Plain-language version
Piero Cipollone of the ECB (the euro area's central bank) is urging EU lawmakers to pass the digital euro laws before the end of 2026. The digital euro would be an electronic form of cash issued by the central bank itself. Any delay would push it back too; the pilot is planned for the second half of 2027. New banknote designs are also being chosen, with the notes due in the early 2030s.
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