The European Central Bank (ECB) has appointed three executives from BBVA, CaixaBank and Bizum as members of the Digital Euro Advisory Group. This is the advisory ‘council of wise men’ that will collaborate with the Eurosystem in the design and distribution of the possible digital euro, Europa Press reported.
The council is composed of 30 members (23 men and seven women), all of whom come from the business community. “I am pleased that so many high-quality experts from the private sector are willing to contribute to the digital euro project,” said ECB Executive Board member Fabio Panetta.
BBVA will be represented by Antonio Macías Vecino, who has been in charge of payments policy at the bank since June 2020. According to his LinkedIn profile, he has been a member of the board of Redsys since September last year, while in May this year he joined the board of Iberpay.
CaixaBank’s Fanny Solano, head of market regulation, digital and retail banking, joins the group of experts. Solano has held the position since 2014 and, since September 2019, she has combined it with the role of director of regulatory implementation management.
Since 2014, Solano has also been a member of the pan-European financial lobby European Savings Banks Group. Before joining CaixaBank, she worked at PwC and as a legal and compliance advisor at Cecabank.
The group of Spanish executives is completed by Fernando Rodríguez Ferrer, who has been responsible for business development at Bizum since January 2017. Previously, he worked as a business strategy consultant at Accenture for six years.
The members of the ‘council of wise men’ also include executives from Société Générale, Nordea, Intesa Sanpaolo, Swedbank, La Banque Postale and Deutsche Bank. They also include the heads of fintech companies Stripe, Nexi and Fluency, as well as an executive from Ingka Group, Ikea’s franchisee and owner of most of its shops.
The 30 members of the advisory group will provide the ECB with industry insights into the design and distribution of digital currency, as well as possibilities to add value “for all players” in the payments ecosystem. The group will meet at least once a quarter, although there will be written consultations between meetings.
