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Italy’s top payments network NEXI working with ECB to design electronic Euro

  • Italian Payments giant NEXI is adding to ECB’s design for the electronic Euro.
  • The digital euro development project is likely to take more than two years.


Europe’s leading electronic payments network NEXI can be working with the European Central Bank (ECB) to contribute to developing the region’s main bank digital currency (CBDC). NEXI CEO, Paolo Bertoluzzo, produced the remarks Thursday while speaking to CNBC’s Karen TSO on Money 20/20 system. Bertoluzzo added that a CBDC could be a force in the advancement of digital payments.

We’re starting to talk about a new version of cash. That’s why we are engaging with the ECB.

The announcement comes roughly three months following the ECB said it was advancing its digital Euro design plans into a two-year-long investigative phase. The ECB defines the particular digital Euro as an electronic form of money issued by the Eurosystem, constituting the ECB and the national central banks of the region’s 19 associate states.

Some of its member states have made plans to develop their own CBDCs, including Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain, while others such as Germany, Italy have declared their assistance for ECB’s digital euro initiative.

According to the ECB, the digital Euro would not substitute cash but provide all citizens in its member states with an alternative, safe and regulated way of using the Euro. NEXI is the biggest Italian pay-tech company founded in 2018. It provides merchant payments solutions, credit cards and digital obligations, and digital banking solutions.

NEXI has a powerful existence in Italy with a market share of 70 percent in the merchant business estimated in 890, 000 merchants countrywide. Nexi’s partners in the banking sector cover 80 % of Italy’s banking system, and the platform has prepared transactions worth over 259 billion Euros.

Meanwhile, China is advancing further with lab tests for its digital yuan. Within August, China tested DCEP on the domestic futures market for the first time by using it to pay for storage fees in a delivery stockroom in Dalian. The lab tests have been implemented in different towns, including the capital Beijing, Shenzen, and Xiong’an. In 2022, however , China is gearing in order to expand the tests in order to foreign visitors during the Wintertime Olympics event.

US Government Reserve lagging behind

Since fellow top financial facilities in the world advance their plans, the Federal Reserve provides remained rigid to the concept of developing a CBDC. Most recently, the particular Fed further put down investors’ hopes for a CBDC whenever Chair Jerome Powell said during a news conference that it can be still undecided on the topic but “working proactively in order to issue a CBDC. ”

We think it is the obligation to do the work each on public policy plus technology to form a basis for making an informed decision.

Jerome added that the Federal Arrange is studying the potential advantages and risks of creating an electronic dollar and will soon concern a paper on its finding.

While the Fed announced it is not in a hurry to develop a CBDC, US financial regulators are rushing to present regulatory guidelines for cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are the main reasons that many central banks are trying to play catch up with competitive innovation within the fintech industry, posing a threat to financial institutions plus fiat currencies.

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