Experts invited to join technical talks on digital euro

15 October 2021

The ECB is inviting technology experts to take part in online technical talks to explore options for the design of a central bank digital currency. These talks will focus on four topics:

• Large-scale application of privacy-preserving technologies in retail payments in combination with the traceability of financial transactions. How do such technologies interact with those for user authentication for payment solutions?
• Security of offline payment solutions that are not linked to any external system for conducting consecutive payments. How can we make the top-up process and the use of the secure element more convenient?
• Top-up, funding and defunding of digital wallets or accounts for bearer and account-based payment solutions. How can we make it easier for customers to fund and defund a payment wallet or account, either manually or automatically?
• Impact of limiting (or disincentivising) the hoarding of large sums of money in a payment wallet or account on the usability and uptake of a payment solution, in normal times or during times of financial distress. What do we know about households’ behaviour in this regard?

The talks will be held at expert level as closed sessions with members of the ECB’s digital euro project team. They will each be structured as a 20-minute presentation followed by a question and answer session and last 45 minutes in all.

To join in this European project, please state which topic you wish to address and describe in a maximum of 500 words the technical problems and solutions you would like to present. Please send the package to DigitalEuro@ecb.europa.eu by 30 November 2021. We will assess your application for its relevance to the four topics listed above, its practical potential within a widely-used retail payments solution and its novelty of approach.

Background to the technical talks

On 1 October 2021 the ECB launched an investigation phase of a digital euro set to last two years. During this phase we will look at how a digital euro could be designed and distributed to retailers and the public. Once the investigation phase is over, we will decide whether to start developing a digital euro.