Panetta said that the digital version of the euro will be free to use and available to all and the ECB does not want to keep any personal data on its users.
Nonetheless Panetta added: “This may be problematic, however, given concerns about money laundering, terrorism financing, and tax evasion, so legislators are looking at options to keep tabs on usage.”
“The digital euro would be a public good,” said Panetta, “It would therefore make sense for its basic services to be free of charge – for example when using the digital euro to pay another person, as is the case for cash.”
The commercial banks have been been concerned that a digital currency would make their own services redundant, so customers would move their accounts to central bank accounts, assuming central banks to be more secure.
However, Panetta said the ECB would not compete with commercial banks by offering accounts to citizens.
“We believe supervised intermediaries, who are in direct contact with users, are best placed to identify use cases for conditional payments and any other advanced payment services,”said Panetta..
