ECB’s Cipollone: Commercial Banks’ Fears of Digital Euro Misplaced

19 February 2024

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone on Monday said that commercial banks’ reservations about the digital euro were misplaced.

In a column he co-authored for the online policy portal VoxEU, a short version of which was published on the website of the ECB, Cipollone said, ‘Banks are barking up the wrong tree when they rely on studies that overlook the outlined design features of a digital euro.’

The digital euro would fill a gap in payments and contribute to ‘strengthening the monetary sovereignty and resilience of the currency union’, he said.

‘[T]he persistent complaints regarding future volumes of digital euro in studies sponsored by the banking system are not looking at the right variable (which is central bank money in circulation) and are outdated (since they ignore the digital euro blueprint)’, he said.

The commercial banks’ current approach to the digital euro neglected important elements that needed to be addressed, he said.

‘Banks need to offer attractive products and services that incentivise customers to hold their deposits with them instead of migrating to new and powerful private competitors’, he said.