The European Central Bank selects five companies to conduct a pilot user experience of the digital euro – IT Pro – News

In fact, the origin (not this finding, but the research that led to this finding, among other things) lies in the 2008 financial crisis. When it turned out that even the largest commercial banks could collapse overnight if trusted by other parties in the ecosystem financial. And whether this trust is lost rightly or wrongly, it does not matter even as to the consequences.

The world was very close to the abyss at the time, and it prompted a whole series of experts to think about how to make the financial system less vulnerable to shocks. Over the years, a lot of concrete plans and measures have emerged from this and “Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)” is one of them.

Citizens and businesses are usually completely dependent on commercial banks for their money. You are not receiving your salary yourself, you have agreed with your employer that it will be paid to a commercial bank that offers you (for a fee) access to your own money. A commercial bank wants to make a profit themselves, take a risk, invest your salary back, etc. If a series of commercial banks fail in the next crisis (meaning the risk is greater now that we have deliberately made it more difficult to save once with tax money) then suddenly you and I are in a lot of trouble with our own money. If, as with the digital euro, you also have an account with a public bank (the European Central Bank) in addition to an account with your own commercial bank, then suddenly you will find all kinds of additional options. For example, the European Central Bank could decide to send money directly to citizens rather than to commercial banks.

The plans for the digital euro predate the spread of the pandemic, but an additional use case was added during the pandemic, the “stimulus check”. If, as a government, you decide to help your citizens financially, it is more efficient to put money from the ECB directly into their official ECB bank account than to ask everyone what they are. bank account in. It is a commercial bank.

Finally, there is actually some kind of beauty. ABN AMRO is not mine. The European Central Bank is mine, a public bank under democratic supervision. However, I can get an account with ABN AMRO and not with the ECB. This could eventually change now.

[Reactie gewijzigd door Maurits van Baerle op 20 september 2022 13:03]