Contribution by Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, to a roundtable at Aspen Institute Italia

Rome, 19 December 2025

Money is at the heart of what central banks do.^[1] Ever since central banks have existed, their core role has been to issue money and protect its value. That mandate will not change – but the technological environment in which we deliver it is changing, and it is changing radically.

Digital payments are now the norm, and new technologies are disrupting financial services. Financial institutions have become technological entities, and tech firms have entered the spheres of payments and finance.

Central banks are no exception. If they want money to remain stable, trusted and usable in a digital world, they must help shape that world and modernise central bank money. If they fail to do so, central banks may no longer be able to provide an anchor of stability to the financial system.

In the euro area context, there are good reasons for the…