Top banking institutions must have confidence that the digital euro project will be built properly, according to European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde. His approval could take place as early as this summer.
But this will only be the beginning of the whole project. “We’ve got to be sure we’re going to do the whole thing right. We owe it to the Europeans. The whole process, let’s be realistic, will, I think, take another four years, maybe a little bit longer,” Christine Lagarde said in an interview with the Bloomberg agency.
The European Central Bank will process an analysis in which it must answer about eight thousand inquiries received by the public consultation process to launch the digital euro concerned. The analysis will then head to the European Parliament and subsequently the ECB Executive Board will decide on the steps leading to the practical implementation of the digital euro.
The decision on when the digital euro will launch should be made within another half year. ‘It’s as much a technical challenge as a fundamental change within the system. We must be sure that we will not disrupt the system, but improve it,” Lagarde also said. But the digital euro won’t mean the end of cash, she says.
