24 June 2024

• ECB designing high privacy standards to make online and offline digital payments as close as possible to cash transactions
• ECB started work on designing methodology for calibrating digital euro holding limits
• ECB continues to provide technical input to legislative discussions with European co-legislators

The European Central Bank (ECB) today published its first progress report on the digital euro preparation phase, which was launched on 1 November 2023 with the aim of laying the foundations for the potential issuance of a digital euro.

The report outlines the progress made on key digital euro design aspects and the envisaged next steps for the project.

Digital euro privacy

The design of the digital euro includes an offline functionality that would offer users a cash-like level of privacy for payments in physical shops and between individuals. When paying offline, personal transaction details would only be known to the payer and the payee and would not be shared with…