A digital euro would be required to ensure users can still make payments during major outages, according to European Central Bank (ECB) board member Piero Cipollone.
A Eurozone central bank digital currency (CBDC) could provide business continuity in the event of a cyberattack on banks or other payment providers, Cipollone said at the European Parliament in Brussels on Thursday.
“If a cyberattack caused the outage of a bank’s own app, but the bank’s backend services were still functioning, customers would still be able to access their accounts with that bank through the ECB’s digital euro app,” he said.
Furthermore, if a digtal euro app had offline functionality, it could provide a failsafe for users during a power outage that takes regular methods of payment offline.
“Cash is our only true fallback…but as society increasingly moves away from cash, and as cash itself may be difficult to access in emergencies, we need to complement it with a digital version,” Cipollone added.
The ECB, like its counterparts in almost every other economy around the world, has been exploring the possibilities of a digital version of its currency for a number of years.
Among their motivations are addressing the competition provided by stablecoins and non-bank payment services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and so on.