The European Digital Payments Industry Alliance believes that a well-designed digital euro has the potential to be an enabler of innovation in the retail payments space. The success of this project will depend on the underlying design features of the digital euro, with the primary focus or complementing the market without deeply distorting it.
In this regard, EDPIA wishes to raise attention to the following aspects that are crucial for the success of this project:
- Pricing should be set by competition in highly competitive parts of the sector – except where there is a well-established competition reason to intervene, as on the inter-PSP fee.
- Merchants should be able to choose which payments means they accept – in the same manner as other electronic payment means such as cards or instant payments.
- PSPs should have equal opportunity to distribute the digital euro – to boost competition and ensure a level playing field.
- The scheme should be governed in an open, independent, and balanced manner – those accounts for the interests of different parts of the payments market, merchants, and consumers.
- The rollout of the project should have a pragmatic roadmap – which is ambitious enough to be appealing to citizens without being so ambitious that targets will be missed (which hurts trust).
- Scenarios where the central bank will access data must be very clear – to meet the expectation of privacy from citizens.
As the voice of the independent, European acquirers, EDPIA has been working on this topic in multiple fora and stands ready to contribute to the ongoing policy debate in a constructive manner.
