21–30 of 67 posts
Banks lobbying for their free money from deposits is one of the reasons financial start-ups fight an uphill battle. Even though their business is less risky (no loans) they have fewer rights.
Hundreds of millions of people are not getting their deserved interest on the savings because banks managed regulatory capture.
Clickbait title. This is a simulation of an unexpected event and IMO meant to dissuade the public from digital currency.
On the one hand I feel stupid asking what I think are the obvious questions. On the other hand I don't feel stupid because there's no way a lot of people know the answer to these questions:
Is this "digital currency" actually just the Euro? If it is, aren't the Euros in bank's computer also digital? And why are these things given as understood by everyone when journalists write about the subject?
for all intents and purposes the Euro is already digital. you send money to persons and companies via instant wire transfer, you pay digitally when shopping online and you pay digitally in physical stores with your card or NFC phone. what possible benefit over what already exists and is in wide use could a "digital euro" offered by the ECB provide to any EU citizen?
Great! There is little reason for loan industry and money deposit services to be coupled. Banks lobbying for their free money from deposits is one of the reasons financial start-ups fight an uphill battle. Even though their business is less risky (no loans) they have fewer rights. Hundreds of millions of people are not getting their deserved interest on the savings because banks managed regulatory capture.
How is the digital euro saved? Is it insured? Does it earn interest?
Paper and coins euro doesn't come with interest, I don't see why digital would. That'd still be the job of a bank.
for all intents and purposes the Euro is already digital. you send money to persons and companies via instant wire transfer, you pay digitally when shopping online and you pay digitally in physical stores with your card or NFC phone. what possible benefit over what already exists and is in wide use could a "digital euro" offered by the ECB provide to any EU citizen?
I think it would help create fintech local alternatives to Visa and Mastercard, if it gets feature parity. It could be cool and, to be honest, this market could use a bit of a shakeup.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The EU doesn't have anything close to the police force necessary to enforce a cash ban in the face of public opposition, and doesn't have the money to pay for one.
If there are no ATMs, and no shops accept cash, and they no longer mint Euro currency, what is there to enforce? This is effectively already the case in parts of Scandinavia.
Ironically this isn't quite as consequence-free as some people thought:
"In 2018 a former deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank predicted that by 2025 the country would probably be cashless.
Seven years on, that prediction has turned out to be pretty much true. Just one in 10 purchases are made with cash, and card is the most common form of payment, followed by the Swedish mobile payment system Swish, launched by six banks in 2012 and now ubiquitous. Other mobile phone payment services are also growing quickly.
In fact, according to the central bank’s annual payments report, published this month, Sweden and Norway have the lowest amount of cash in circulation, as a percentage of GDP, in the world.
But in the context of today, with war in Europe, unpredictability in the US and the fear of Russian hybrid attacks almost a part of daily life in Sweden, life without cash is not proving the utopia that perhaps it once promised to be.
Such is the perceived severity of the situation that the authorities are trying to encourage citizens to keep and use cash in the name of civil defence..."
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/16/sweden-ca...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's a personal account in the ECB, it's insured by the ECB's digital printer and interest will likely be whatever the ECB decides; it'll need to pick a value that doesn't blow up commercial banks as the article says, and even if does and chooses a very low deposit limit, it'll still cause stress. > The study, requested by European legislators, was aimed at evaluating the risks that a digital currency, essentially an…
> it'll need to pick a value that doesn't blow up commercial banks as the article says, and even if does and chooses a very low deposit limit, it'll still cause stress. or, more likely, everyone in the EU will ignore this "digital euro" nonsense and it will just be another unnecessary waste of taxpayer money.
for all intents and purposes the Euro is already digital. you send money to persons and companies via instant wire transfer, you pay digitally when shopping online and you pay digitally in physical stores with your card or NFC phone. what possible benefit over what already exists and is in wide use could a "digital euro" offered by the ECB provide to any EU citizen?
every euro account ultimately ends up on the ECB's balance sheet, so why keep middlemen?