Overview

• The ECB board member said a Eurozone CBDC is needed to ensure payments continue during severe disruptions or cyberattacks.
• If a bank’s app goes down but its backend still runs, customers could access their accounts through an ECB digital euro app.
• An offline-capable version could let people pay during power or network outages that disable regular electronic methods.
• Cipollone called cash the only true fallback today yet argued a digital counterpart is necessary as access to cash declines.
• The push builds on years of ECB research into a digital euro, partly to counter stablecoins and non-bank services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.