“Strengthening the resilience of payments in Europe has become a geopolitical necessity,” Markus Ferber, a leading member of the ECON committee said on Tuesday.
“In a world marked by geopolitical tensions, we can no longer accept that digital payments are largely dependent on the goodwill of a few foreign providers,” he added, echoing concerns expressed across the EU.
The new rules voted by the ECON Committee cleared the way for the ECB to introduce both online and offline versions of the currency by 2029. Crucially, the offline version will allow users to swap digital euros directly from phone to phone without an internet connection, guaranteeing cash-like privacy that prevents the ECB from seeing what citizens are buying.
Commercial banks successfully lobbied for strict holding limits on how much a citizen can keep in a digital wallet to avoid a mass exodus of cash from traditional accounts during a crisis.
The ECB will now undertake a 12-month pilot phase using a beta version to test the infrastructure in real-world scenarios with select merchants and payment service providers.
“The euro must work in your pocket and on your phone,” Ferber summed up.
