The European Central Bank and the Eurosystem currently have no plans to issue a central bank digital currency, wrote ECB president Mario Draghi in a letter to the European Parliament. One of the reasons Draghi gave is because the technologies which could potentially be used to issue a central bank digital currency, such as distributed ledgers, have not yet been thoroughly tested and require substantial further development before they could be used in a central bank context.
However, he noted that the ECB is still carefully analyzing the potential consequences of issuing such a currency as a complement to cash.”In this regard, we are closely following activities by other central banks and working together with the central bank community in the context of standard-setting bodies such as the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI). Our analyses consider the implications for the transmission of monetary policy, payment systems, financial stability and the economy more broadly.”