The European Central Bank said its proposed digital euro would strengthen European defenses against cyber and infrastructure disruptions and at the same time cause broad access to digital payments.
Piero Cipollone, a member of the ECB Board of Directors, told the European Parliament’s economic and monetary business committee that resilience and inclusiveness must be central characteristics, since the block is preparing for replacing physical cash with a digital version issued by the Central Bank.
The comments marked the 14th update of the ECB for legislators on the Central Bank Digital Currency Project.
Build a resilience in payments
Cipollone said that dependence on Europe exposes citizens to risks in times of crisis in foreign payment providers. He mentioned incidents ranging from submarine cable absence in the Baltic Sea to recent power outages in Spain and Portugal as examples of how vulnerable infrastructures can disrupt daily transactions.
He argued that the digital euro in the financial system would offer ‘reserve capacity’ by adding public payment rails in addition to private solutions.
Planned guarantees include transaction processing in multiple regions, a mandatory ECB-Run app to guarantee continuity if banks are the target of cyber attacks and offline functionality that make peer-to-peer payments possible during electricity or network failure.
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Ensure admission to all citizens
Cipollone emphasized that the digital euro should also serve Europeans who run the risk of being excluded from an enlightened economy.
He pointed to more than 30 million people in Europe who are blind or partially observed, at least 34 million who are deaf or hard of hearing, and citizens with limited digital literacy.
The ECB said that it cooperates with consumer groups to design adaptive interfaces, including speech assignments and screens with large sadness, and requires that payment providers support their own app to guarantee basic access.
Local institutions such as post offices and libraries can also provide free support to those least familiar with digital tools.