TechFlow News, January 28: According to a report by Cointelegraph, Piero Cipollone, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), stated that escalating geopolitical tensions underscore Europe’s need for a digitally native payment system under its own sovereign control.
In an interview with Spain’s El País newspaper, Cipollone described the digital euro as “public money in digital form,” calling it a necessary complement to cash to address Europe’s increasingly fragmented payments landscape. He noted that cash transactions accounted for only about 24% of the value of daily transactions in 2024—down sharply from 40% in 2019.
Cipollone emphasized that the global trend toward “weaponization of various tools” necessitates a retail payment system “fully under our control,” built on European technology and infrastructure—not reliant on non-European suppliers. He also indicated that any merchant currently accepting digital payments “will have to accept” the digital euro, implying a de facto mandatory acceptance mechanism for this payment method.
