“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 rely heavily on the goodwill of a few foreign providers,” he added, echoing concerns expressed across the EU.
The new rules voted on by the ECON Committee paved the way for the ECB to introduce online and offline versions of the currency by 2029. Crucially, the offline version will allow users to exchange digital euros directly from phone to phone without an internet connection, ensuring cash-like privacy that prevents the ECB from seeing what citizens are buying.
Commercial banks successfully pushed for strict limits on the amount a citizen can hold in a digital wallet to prevent 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 selected merchants and payment service providers.
“The euro must work in your pocket and on your phone,” Ferber summarized.
