European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said in a recent interview that the digital euro will provide stronger privacy protections than ordinary bank transfers.
According to Cipollone, the Eurosystem is structurally unable to connect a specific individual with that person’s digital euro transactions, regardless of whether the payment is made online or offline.
Offline payments compared with cash
Cipollone said offline payments would take place entirely on a direct person-to-person basis. Transaction details would be visible only to the payer and the payee, which he said makes the setup equivalent to cash transactions.
For online transactions, he said only the banks participating in the payment would be able to identify the user, and only for anti-money laundering purposes.
Pushback against concerns over cash replacement
Cipollone also rejected concerns that the digital euro would replace physical cash. He pointed to the ECB’s recent public consultation on the design of new euro banknotes and said, 「if institutions intended to eliminate cash, this would make no sense」.
His comments came as public opposition to the digital euro has been rising.
Civil society groups question privacy model
Earlier this month, Austrian digital rights organization Epicenter.works and other civil society groups said in a joint statement that the digital euro’s privacy safeguards 「rely too heavily on institutional commitments rather than technical enforcement」. They warned that legislative promises could be weakened during implementation, reinterpreted in court, or even broken.
The digital euro regulation was approved by the European Parliament last month, with a launch planned for 2029. ECB President Christine Lagarde previously said the digital euro would coexist with physical cash.