Banca March : The ECB has announced that the preparation phase is to begin on 1 November and will last for two years. The digital currency would be equivalent to cash, playing a complementary and not a substitute role. In this way, euro area citizens will be able to make payments while maintaining the anonymity of cash, but making it more difficult to counterfeit and more convenient to store. This payment system will be free of charge and available without a bank account or digital device. The ECB will have control over its issuance and, in order to avoid leakage of funds from bank accounts, will set a deposit limit of around €3,000. The digital currency has already been adopted by some 11 nations, mostly Caribbean countries plus Nigeria. A further 21, Japan, China, Sweden and Australia, among them, have launched pilot projects, and the euro area is one of 33 countries in the process of development, along with the US, Canada and Brazil.
ECB to start two-year preparation phase for digital euro on 1 November
The ECB will only introduce a digital currency if it is firmly convinced it is necessary
