Digital Euro Will Offer 'Maximum Level of Privacy,' ECB Board Member Says

In brief

• ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone said the digital euro guarantees the maximum privacy current technology can offer, in an interview published Monday.
• Offline payments would be visible only to the payer and payee, while online the Eurosystem could not identify either party, though the banks involved could.
• The European Parliament agreed its negotiating position in July, with a pilot due in the second half of 2027 and first issuance targeted for 2029.

A digital euro would give users as much privacy as current technology allows, a European Central Bank executive board member has said, in the bank's sharpest answer yet to the charge that a central bank digital currency would let Frankfurt watch how Europeans spend.

Piero Cipollone made the claim in an interview with Italian outlet ilsussidiario.net, conducted on August 10 and published by the ECB on Monday. Asked whether the bank could monitor payment habits and track how each citizen uses the currency, he said offline payments would run directly between individuals, with the details available only to the payer and the payee.

Online, he said, the Eurosystem would not be able to identify the people making or receiving payments. Only the banks involved in a transaction could do that, including for anti-money laundering purposes.