EBAday: CBDC is coming to Europe, but are we ready for it?

finextra.com:

Moderated by deputy editor of the The Banker, Liz Lumley, speakers included Alessandro Agnoletti, group head of digital currency and DLT at Nexi, Manuel Klein, product manager of blockchain solutions and digital currencies at Deutsche Bank, Emma Landrault, vice president of J.P. Morgan Onyx Coin Systems, Daniel McLean, digital euro and business model lead at European Central Bank, and Gilbert Verdian, founder and CEO of Quant.

When asked about trends emerging in the CBDC sector, Landrault commented that she sees trends in commercial bank tokens and tokenised deposits: “The asset tokenisation ecosystem is growing. We are seeing a growth in the conversation around tokenized deposits and commercial bank tokens, how we can design commercial bank money and central bank money on chain. For the last few years, we have had various iterations of different PoCs for wholesale CBDC, and only now are we seeing Swiss banking Association, German Banking Association, starting to publish consultations on commercial bank deposits. We are starting to see the whole commercial and central bank money come onto this digitised conversation.”

On the development of the digital euro, McLean stated that it is in progress and the Governing Council will soon move on to the next stage of the process and provide a digital framework for the digital euro. “A digital central bank currency is needed. We believe its future, and we believe the central bank needs in addition to the wholesale components, needs to also offer a digital alternative to cash for the future.”

On the benefits of retail CBDCs, McLean said that now is the time to act to provide options to the consumer. He boils the essence of retail CBDCs down to trust, in that users will have multiple