The Eurosystem has published a comprehensive payments strategy setting out how it wants Europe’s payments to develop as new technologies such as tokenisation and distributed ledger technology are adopted.
The plan expands the Eurosystem’s earlier retail payments strategy by also covering wholesale payments, business-to-business transactions and cross-border payments, the European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Tuesday.
Payments are “critical for society” and are “changing rapidly”, Piero Cipollone, a member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board, said.
The strategy lists four aims: maintaining the role of central bank money in retail and wholesale markets; making Europe’s payments system more robust and autonomous; encouraging more integrated and competitive payments for people and businesses; and supporting the international role of the euro.
Tokenised assets and the digital euro
For wholesale transactions, central bank money should remain “at the core”, while private settlement assets such as tokenised deposits and stablecoins could complement it if they are EU-governed, euro-denominated, and “properly designed and regulated”, the Eurosystem said.
The strategy also calls for more standardisation, automation and process integration in business-to-business payments, so companies can use more efficient payment solutions.
On retail payments, the Eurosystem said the digital euro — a proposed electronic form of central bank money — could support the development of pan-European private payment options.
The framework brings together major Eurosystem initiatives including the digital euro and projects known as Pontes and Appia, alongside work on cross-border payments.
Separately, the Eurosystem said the strategy complements its approach to cash, including work on a new series of euro banknotes with a new design and support for legal initiatives to reinforce the legal tender status of cash.
