Olaf Scholz, the Finance Minister of Germany is prompting the European Central Bank (ECB) to accelerate its work over the development of its potential Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) called Digital Euro. ECB needs to boost its efforts and make quick decisions on Digital Euro and that it should not wait and watch the approach for the launch of a centralized digital currency as central banks from across the whole world are working over their respective central bank digital currencies at a rapid pace.
Recently, the German Finance Minister appeared in an online conference held in Europe on future payments. In this online conference, Olaf Scholz talked about the importance of a potential Central Bank Digital Currency. While expressing his views over CBDCs, he said that the European Central Bank needs to do something about its centralized digital currency. It cannot just sit back and see other central banks launching their respective digital currencies.
He stressed that the ECB should not now delay its decision further regarding the development of the Digital Euro. While urging ECB for quick decisions and an accelerated development process, the Finance Minister said that ECB should work really hard on the development of its central bank digital currency.
“On the digital euro, I think we should work very hard. It is nothing where we should wait and see. We should be able to decide at any time that now we should do something with a digital euro.”
Scholz also mentioned that the demand from businesses and consumers for the use of cryptocurrencies has grown significantly. Keeping this in mind, the European Central Bank should now think clearly regarding the launch of the Digital Euro.
Though ECB has not clearly revealed whether it will launch its central bank digital currency or not it has made certain developments on Digital Euro. Christine Lagarde, the President of the European Central Bank issued a statement at the beginning of this month saying that the bank intends to proceed with the development and rollout of its centralized digital currency within the duration of the next two to four years.
However, Europe does not seem to be working with a pace on its central bank digital currency project when its work is compared with other central banks of the world such as the People’s Bank of China, and the Bank of Japan. China is even about to complete the testing phase of its Digital Yuan after completing the digital currency’s development and is on the verge to launch it.
