European Union (EU) Prepares to issue Online & Offline Digital Euro to be Built on European Infrastructure to Avoid Dependency on Foreign Providers for Payment Systems
11th February 2026 | Hong Kong
European Union (EU) is preparing to issue online & offline digital euro to be built on European infrastructure to avoid dependency on foreign providers for payment systems. Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the plenary session of the European Parliament (9/2/26): “ Future of central bank money … … We want to ensure that people can continue to use central bank money in all situations of daily life. We are therefore strongly supporting the proposed legal tender Regulation to ensure that cash remains available and accessible to all and that no undue restrictions are placed on its use. And we are preparing to issue a third series of euro banknotes with a new design. But cash cannot be used for digital payments and its share in day-to-day payments is declining as a result. We therefore need to complement physical cash with its digital equivalent, a digital euro. The digital euro will provide consumers a solution that is accepted for any digital payment, throughout the euro area. It will guarantee the highest level of privacy: by design we at the central bank will not have access to personal data. And it will be possible to pay offline, with cash-like privacy. The digital euro will also benefit European businesses. It will reduce fees for merchants, in particular small ones. And it will make it easier for European private payment service providers to expand the reach of the solutions they offer. Finally, it will be built on a fully European infrastructure, avoiding an excessive dependency on foreign providers for payments systems that are critical to the functioning of our economy. As co-legislator, you have a key role to play in delivering these benefits by making decisive progress towards the adoption of the digital euro Regulation. In parallel, we also aim to make tokenised central bank money available to support the development of an integrated European ecosystem for digital assets. This will ensure that this ecosystem has a risk-free, euro-denominated, European asset at its core. This initiative, which you welcome in your resolution has two ambitions. The first is to make it possible to settle DLT-based wholesale transactions in central bank money. Our project Pontes will deliver a solution for this purpose to the market already in the third quarter of this year. Our second ambition is to unlock the full potential of tokenisation. Our project Appia aims to create a European market for digital assets that is integrated from the outset. The ECB’s goal is to develop more resilient and integrated market infrastructures, harnessing digital finance to benefit the euro area economy.”
“ European Union (EU) Prepares to issue Online & Offline Digital Euro to be Built on European Infrastructure to Avoid Dependency on Foreign Providers for Payment Systems “
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European Union (EU) Prepares to issue Online & Offline Digital Euro to be Built on European Infrastructure to Avoid Dependency on Foreign Providers for Payment Systems
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