At the Deutsche Bundesbank virtual conference on 10 September 2020, President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Christine Lagarde gave a speech on banking and payments in the digital economy. Lagarde once again mentioned possibly introducing a digital euro when discussing initiatives to strengthen European payment systems.
Lagarde considers “central banks can and should, within their mandates, be agents of change and fulfill their responsibilities towards citizens.” She continued by saying that central banks need to anticipate the change, risks, and potential of digital innovations.
The ECB president identified two trends in global payments. One is the increasing consumer preference for digital payments, and the other is the competition to dominate payments on a global scale. On this note, she referred to the G7 working paper on stablecoins and Facebook’s Libra. That brought her to the digital euro, saying, “introducing a digital euro would allow the Eurosystem to be at the cutting edge of innovation.”
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