When making digital payments, have you ever given a thought to the underlying infrastructure – the back end of these payments? The details of these complex private “traffic routes” are rarely known to those who do not deal with them in their professional lives. Now, however, it looks like the digital euro is breaking completely new ground. Now, at the latest, it is worth taking a closer look.
As long as the payment systems operate reliably and are not a significant cost factor, they are of secondary importance to citizens and their everyday use of money. It is often only when people have to make transfers to non-European countries that they realize that payments are a business – and that the low-cost accessibility of the infrastructures on which they are processed is not simply a given. In this episode, the Digitalgelddickicht therefore takes a closer look at what lies underneath digital payments.
The infrastructure required for the digital euro is to be built from scratch: What kind of work does this mean for the ECB? How should commercial banks, which will have to process these payments, prepare for this? If the digital euro enters an already competitive business area, what challenges and opportunities does this present for banks and citizens? And will the progress made by the European Payments Initiative in offering a private European payment solution be a game changer?
Guests
Manuel Klein is Product Manager Blockchain Solutions & Digital Currencies at Corporate Bank of Deutsche Bank. In this position, he also analyses the potential impact of central bank digital currencies on the banking sector.
Prof. Dr. Barbara Brandl is Professor of Sociology with a focus on Organization and Economy» at the Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. She is member of the ZEVEDI Project Group Tokenized Finance».
Dr. Andreas Bley is chief economist of the National Association of German Cooperative Banks (BVR).
Marek Jessen is a researcher in the ZEVEDI project Money as Data» and research fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute, Berlin.
Further Information
Maurer, Bill: How Would You Like to Pay? How Technology Is Changing the Future of Money, Duke University Press: Durham und London, 2015.
Bechtel, Alexander and Klein, Manuel: Der digitale Euro ist mehr als nur Geld, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 October 2023.
European Central Bank: A stocktake on the digital euro.Summary report on the investigation phase and outlook on the next phase, 18 October 2023.
European Central Bank: Call for Application: Digital Euro – Risk and Fraud Management, 3 January 2024.
Panetta, Fabio: Letter to several MEPs on the request to postpone the decision on digital euro, 6 October 2023.
Panetta, Fabio: Letter to Irene Tinagli, ECON Chair, on ECB Governing Council decision to proceed to preparation phase of the digital euro project, 18 October 2023.
Bitcoin, Fiat & Rock’n Roll, Episode 254 / Manuel Klein : Blockchain-Token, UTXOs und Accounts – was ist das eigentlich?, 11 September 2023.
European Commission: Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and European Council on the Establishment of a Digital Euro», 28 June 2023.
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