European Central Bank (ECB) Board member Piero Cipollone revealed that the bank has decided in 2029 as a realistic timeline to establish a Digital eurosIn the form of an online payment wallet with the support of the central bank.
Speech At Bloomberg’s Future of Finance event in Frankfurt, Germany, Cipollone paid tribute to a “big breakthrough” last week after the European Union’s finance ministers agreed on a framework for the customer’s borders, a key function to control use and protect bank deposits.
“The discussion at the level of the Member States is going very well,” he said. “Mid -2029 may be a fair assessment.”
Cipollone also suggested that the EU Parliament, the European Council and the European Commission could agree on the best way to proceed at the end of 2025.
“We should come up with a general strategy, as they call it, an agreement between Member States at the end of the year,” Cipollone said, and added that if an approach to the digital euro is reached at the end of the year, the ECB will require about two and a half to three years to start, which is so he landed in 2029 as the possible possible date.
EU and ECB have worked since 2021 on a possible Central Bank digital currency (CBDC) for the block, in the form of the digital euro. But while the ECB has made its favorable opinions very clear –pitch the digital euro as viable Digital payment Options that cover the entire euro area and an alternative to the dominant US-based visa (Nasdaq: v) and mastercard (Nasdaq: MA) System – the European Parliament has drawn its feet on the necessary legislation.
In April, Cipollone presented to the EU Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and update About the development of the digital European project and urges members of the European Parliament (MPs to make progress on the legislative front.
The repeated this foundation On September 4, in another speech to Econ, and calls on “progress in the legislative process”, to give Europeans a clear and specific timeline for when they can expect the digital euro to become a reality.
In a Eurogroup press conference In Denmark last week, ECB President Christine lawyer indicated that an agreement may finally be in place that allows legislation to be developed.
According to a Reuters ReportThe compromise agreement was reached between EU finance ministers, the ECB President Lagarde and the European Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, who would give the EU ministers say about a digital euro issued or how much money that every EU residents will be able to keep in digital euros, to gain access to fear or not.
“The digital euro is not only a means of payment, it is also a political statement on sovereignty in Europe and its ability to handle payment, including on a cross -border basis, with a European infrastructure and solution,” Lagarde said, in its September 19 opening remarks.
She went on to pour the agreement as a major breakthrough for the digital euro, which she referred to as “not just a means of payment, it is also a political statement about the sovereignty in Europe and its ability to handle payments, including cross -border.”
Lagarde also welcomed the “unanimous” support to proceed with a European digital payment infrastructure and repeated that she and Cipollone were “strong advocates” about digital euros and were “worried” to see real legislative progress.
Digital euro slow progress
The trip to this latest agreement on digital euros began in 2021, when the ECB launched a investigation to a Eurozone CBDC, which would be used by citizens and companies for retail payments.
This lasted for two years, after which the central bank started the digital euro ”Preparation phase“In November 2023.
After positive progress, in November 2024, ECB Required partners To test conditional payments in a CBDC simulation, as Began in February 2025. ECB later announced It extended this initiative to resolve transactions between institutions by one Wholesale CBDC payment system.
In March, it was prepared confirmed ECB’s commitment to the project and said that the team behind the digital euro was “focused on speeding up the pace” and added that the “test phase” for the digital euro was planned to quit in October.
On May 5, ECB announced that it had established an “innovation platform” with 70 participants to collaborate on testing Digital Euro project. The platform aims to simulate the proposed digital Euro ecosystem, “where the ECB provides technical support and infrastructure for European intermediaries to develop innovative digital payment functions and services at European level.”
The ECB -Digital Euro test is ongoing, and from Lagarde and Cipollon’s enthusiasm they seem to go well; The only barrier is legislative delay, with Some EU legislators skeptical ofWith reference to joint CBDC-related concerns about integrity, financial inclusion and cyber security.
But with a compromise and roadmap now reportedly Agreements, including procedures that would give the ministers say whether to launch and maintain boundaries, there should be no reason why the European Parliament cannot take up the pace for necessary legislation.
Look: Find ways to use CBDC outside digital currencies
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