The president of the German Savings Banks and Giro Association (DSGV), Ulrich Reuter, is sharply criticizing the planned digital euro. For the official, the project in the form planned by the EU Commission and $(LB4967383:the European Central Bank (ECB)) is a kind of Trojan horse for big tech corporations like Apple or Google. According to him, the expensive prestige project could massively endanger Europe’s digital sovereignty in payment transactions.
Contrary to the goal of creating independence from US-American payment giants, the digital euro, in its current conception, offers non-European providers convenient access to European customers, their data, and payment infrastructure, Reuter warns in a Commentary for Table.Media. This would lead to customer information continuing to be spied upon, the dependence on international payment service providers and big tech players for merchants not ending, and Europe not gaining sufficient control over its payment flows.
This would achieve the opposite of the stated goals, Reuter believes. He vividly speaks of US President Donald Trump “sitting in” on a coffee table conversation between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, because US companies would dominate intra-European payment transactions.
Wero as an Alternative
The payment sector is characterized by high-performance competition, requiring market participants with customer experience and innovative strength, explains the savings banks lobbyist. The ECB, on the other hand, is at best an outside referee without its own customer experience. By wanting to “play along” itself in the multi-billion euro initiative, it is blocking all development capacities of European payment providers for years. This burdens these providers in global competition instead of helping them to bundle their strengths. For a better, market-oriented alternative, Reuter considers the joint payment response of the European financial industry named Wero, which is also intended to compete with PayPal.
A third point made by the official concerns the foundation of money: trust. This arises from reliability and stability, which would be undermined by the digital euro. Reuter fears that the ECB could withdraw bank deposits from the money circulation, thereby weakening lending and destabilizing the financial system. Since the euro already exists in digital form today on every bank account, which functions as a “front door” to payment transactions, a digital euro without connection to familiar customer accounts risks low acceptance.
Reuter emphasizes that digital sovereignty only arises through strong, competitive European providers. A digital euro must therefore strengthen European payment transactions in international competition, prove itself in the market, be supported by market participants, and only be integrated into people’s lives via their bank accounts. The EU Parliament is currently debating whether the digital euro should be usable only offline or also online – i.e., account-based. Classic commercial banks have felt sidelined for years in view of the ECB’s plans, as deposits are lost and many customers no longer need a current account at all.
ECB wants to prevent US dominance
The fear that the digital euro could act as an entry door for Big Tech arises from the way the ECB intends to design the associated payment services. It is to be a legal tender issued by the central bank. For payment processing, for example via apps, wallets, and point-of-sale solutions, the involvement of intermediaries is necessary. By creating a new, standardized digital currency infrastructure, it could become easier for large, technologically agile big tech or US payment corporations to link their services directly to this system.
If these large global players offer more user-friendly and innovative wallets or apps than European banks, they are likely to quickly occupy the interface to the customer. While they would not issue the money themselves, they would gain control over the customer experience and transaction data. The ECB therefore wants to stipulate that merchants in the eurozone must accept the digital currency. This is intended to reduce dependence on individual dominant providers. The central bank could also restrict big tech involvement through strict requirements, for example, regarding permissible data usage, to prevent a market-dominant position.
(nen)
