Digital euro

here, I already would like to...

Well, point out the difference between the plans here in Europe with the digital euro and what you were just describing as one of the big and important use cases here.

The ECB is adamant that it will not be any form of programmable money.

Programmable payments, yes.

That surely is not the optimal solution.

So they're really solving some problems and they're doing a lot of great stuff.

So the digital Euro, I would also put as one of the good candidates.

But we haven't talked about India.

is the fourth X factor.

Segment five is the digital euro and European sovereignty.

Europe.

The European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone has argued that a digital euro could help protect European financial sovereignty.

The ECB is preparing for a pilot involving real transactions in 2027. with potential issuance as early as 2029, which will be here sooner than you know it.

It's subject to legislation and institutional decisions.

Europe is approaching sovereignty from a different direction.

Rather than looking primarily at decentralized alternatives, the ECB is exploring public digital payment infrastructure under European institutional authority.

The digital euro is not replacing cash.

The digital euro is another form of payment, it's the digital twin of cash.

The solution that the digital euro provides is one of the solutions that creates a sovereign system of digital payments, of course, within Europe and in the entire Euro area, to be precise.

Today, I'm joined by Dr. Martin Kocher, Governor of the Austrian National Bank, and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank.

Welcome.

Yeah

... getting rid of a lot of things that are hindering innovation.

Then let's switch to another, uh, hot topic at the moment, the digital euro.

Ireland, uh, has to roll out for public services by the end of this year, 2026, and extend it to private services by next year.

And we're also expecting the European Central Bank to be rolling out the digital euro pilots between next year and 2029.

How does the whole apparatus of age verification system, or that, that architecture, becomes the same infrastructure used to control access to digital currency?

Yep.

He's very knowledgeable.

Like, off camera when we were talking, like, yeah, he's a target himself and-

And he's aware, like, speaking of which, CBDCs and the digital euro, he's aware of what they're building, and he's fine with that? Like-

Well, I mean, it's like, I don't, I don't know.

Okay.

And then I sort of want to round out the conversation, I guess, by looking at that wider payments environment, particularly in Europe with changes, PSD3, the payment services regulation, SEPA Instant, and that potential digital euro.

So what do you think businesses need to be preparing for? And where do you see payment orchestration heading next?

Yeah, they...

With CFOs and finance leaders, I think a lot of the things that are top of mind for them is going to be cost, resiliency, conversion, authorization rates, interchange fees, they all compound.

But that orchestration that has the observability to do that, I think is going to be critical for for any organization to be able to stay on top of the different regulations that are coming across Europe.

You have PSD3, SEPA Instant, Digital Euro.

Those are all infrastructure waves.

Hello, and welcome to another brand new episode of What the FinTech, a podcast from the team behind FinTech Futures and the Banking Technology Magazine.

My name is Paul Hindle, Managing Editor at FinTech Futures, and for this episode, we're joined by Evelyn Whitlocks, Director of the Digital Euro Project at the European Central Bank.

Evelyn, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for the invitation.

So my name is Eifny Mitloxt.

I have been in payments more or less all of my professional life.

I joined the ECB now four and a half, almost five years ago to work on the Digital Euro project.

I'm the program manager for the Digital Euro in the Euro system at the ECB.