 Hello and good afternoon to all of you who have joined us today for this webinar on the topic of a digital euro My name is Kira Lawler, and I'm with the ECB's Directorate General Communications I am joined today by Jürgen Schaff, Advisor at Directorate General Market Infrastructure and Payments here at the ECB Who has very kindly agreed to talk us through the idea of a central bank digital currency To give you some context to this in October the ECB published a Report on a digital euro looking at its opportunities Challenges as well as its societal implications At the same time we launched a public consultation Which was seeking the feedback from a wide variety of stakeholders and that consultation is still ongoing So today Jürgen will talk us through the key points of that report So if you could just give me a moment I will talk you through the kind of key issues in terms of the virtual event I know by now you're probably all very very sure how virtual events work But just give me a moment you will currently be seeing myself and Shortly we're going to be seeing some slides Just in case you're wondering why you can't see and if the other participants, please don't worry. They are there It's just a feature of the tool that we're using So at this point your microphones and your cameras are switched off But don't worry during the Q&A session they will be turned on and you will have the ability to speak If you do have any headsets or earphones I would encourage you to use them during the Q&A session just because the sound quality is much better So if you do have any kind of issues or technical problems I would ask you to contact my lovely colleagues in the chat Which it should be located in the right hand corner of your screen Just be sure to talk to all participants so that we can see your comments So as mentioned in the invitation this event is being recorded and the recording Along with the slides will be made available on the ECB's website after the event So without any further ado, let me now pass over to Jurgen who will start his presentation Jurgen the floor is yours Thank you very much Chiara and thank you for having me Now digitalization is penetrating all areas of our life Services in particular Industry 4.0 is a catch word but also payments What we've seen in the in recent years was that more and more people tend to pay with non-cash means of payments And now with the pandemic this trend has accelerated People like paying more paying with credit cards with their mobile phone application Contactless payments has become very very popular So money also payment and money is going digital So no surprise that also the central banks are investigating and dealing with the idea of making their money digital We at the ECB have published a report Dealing asking questions on a couple of scenarios that would make the case for a digital euro more pressing The report was published in early October. We started a public consultation on that report as of the 12th of October And I will go through you Go through the report Alongside the following overview the next slide will show you I Will start with the definition and the main benefits of the digital euro when it comes one day I will present the advantages of such a digital euro. I Will discuss with you present you what is the current Environment for such a central bank digital currency as we call it CBDC We will present you the elements. What makes this a viable product? I will show you that this is supposed to be a Compliment to private initiatives and not something that substitutes the private sector. I Will present you some ideas on what possible types and features of a digital euro could look like I gonna explain to you the public consultation And I will share with you some insights about the conceptual work that is undergoing and the Experimentations that we are doing and finally I will give you some insights on the possible way forward next slide Shows you our key Messages our definition of what a digital euro is actually like So the key thing is that this is central bank money different from commercial bank money. I will Discuss that in a minute. So it's central bank money. It's made available to citizens and firms it's gonna be digital and The idea and the objective is that it's used for payments Now main elements of this is that the digital euro is supposed to be a compliment To cash not a substitute. So we repeat that over and over again Cash is not supposed to be abundant the digital euro when it comes would be a compliment We are seeking for Synergies with the industry. We are not tending to replace or crowd out the private sector It's about synergies with banks with payment service providers with the providers of applications and the like The last point here Currently, we do not see a need To introduce a digital euro. It hasn't been necessary so far, but it might be the case that this changes in the future on the next slide You see the benefits in a broader sense of such a digital euro a digital euro could support the Ongoing digitalization of the economy that we observe everywhere. So industry 4.0. I mentioned already Service sector is going digital and all these things work together these sectors work together their interrelationship could be supported and accelerated and improved by a digital euro Then we do observe a decline in the use of cash So different from other jurisdictions like in the Scandinavian countries cash is still a very important means of payment but we never can be sure how fast an acceleration of the decline in the usage of cash can Can be in Norway recent figures showed only 4% of payments are undertaken By cash Sweden had seen a tremendous decline in the usage of cash In Europe also depending on which country you have a look Cash is still important, but as I said the trend is going in the direction of Less and less cash more and more cashless means of payments so at one point there might be a need for a means of payment that is as accepted as cash Depending on the scenarios Another issue is that there are mounting concerns about the sovereignty of our Financial systems or payment systems in Europe we observe the growing importance of foreign private digital means of payments, but also Possibly public means of payments with the potential of crowding out our domestic currency So the threat is just a virtual one. It's not materialized, but Once we better be prepared before such a scenario such a risk Materializes so the message here clearly is the euro system the ECB need to be prepared the next slide Gives you an insight on what others do. So this is a snapshot of the year that phases out The Federal Reserve system so our counterpart in the US the Fed is working on policy aspects of CBDC The central bank digital currency they have a partnership with the one of the leading universities the MIT to test already several architectures Likewise and even more advanced the People's Bank of China. They have already started to investigate a digital currency Six years ago and they started this year with actual experimentation in a real environment And so they are actually leading the pack of central banks us the euro system We are currently in the phase of active listening and also this exchange if you will is part of this and we are In the public consultation that will end in January 12th Currently on the globe 80% of all central banks are engaging somehow in the work on CBDC Private projects like Facebook's Libra or DIME as it is called now are thinking of integrating some CBDC solutions in their systems and Also, the private sector is investigating and testing in that area more and more Next slide please Now in order to understand better what this is about We have a standard explanation distinction Along the concept of liabilities what a CBDC or a digital euro as we call it here is about Now the most important thing or the most safe asset in this context is the liability of a central bank, so The liability of a central bank would be a claim that you have as a citizen or a company against the central bank Currently there are two different Materializations of this first is cash cash is a physical form of such a central bank liability and it's Accessible to the general public. So every citizen has access to cash the central form of A central bank liability is Central bank deposits normally banks hold that a couple of other institutions have that too There's a limited access Not everybody can have that a feature is that it is digital unlike cash Now there you see already a digital euro would combine these features So it would be digital But it would be accessible by basically everybody and it would be a complement to the other two forms of Central bank liabilities to cash and to do and two deposits at the central bank The other form that we know the other form of liability is Liability of a private entity that is commercial bank money. You all know The site deposits with your bank that is digital money if you will but it's with a commercial bank It's commercial bank money Then you know E-moneys. This is pre-funded electronic means of payments and The third element here relatively new Some stable coins they are also liabilities of a private entity covered often by claims and liabilities by clearly Identifiable entities and the last one and these assets if you will are Not liabilities at all the crypto assets. So the most The most known example is Bitcoin. It's not a liability against anybody. So As you probably know, we are quite critical about that on the next slide You now see what are the elements that are important if any digital euro once it would come Need to have in order to make it viable. So there are a couple of areas where we have to reflect and perform In order to be accepted by the retail client and emergent we have to take the end user perspective. So it has to be Smooth functioning comfortable easy to use and the like Then we have to take at one point design decisions. How is this supposed to look like? then of course it has to fulfill the highest standards of Legal requirements because in the end this is supposed to be a legal tender. So It has to be waterproof in terms of its legal composition and definition Any central bank digital currency issued by a central bank Will and would need to be based on a proper well functioning back-end infrastructure Luckily, we have our target services already in place a huge large-scale highly developed Payment system which we could use but of course a digital Euro a payment solution for the retail segment would also come up with a proper front-end solution So how people would use that in order to effectively pay? and all this need to be combined via a to be developed distribution framework where the digital euro the commercial bank monies payment services and the front-ends needs to be Combined and interlinked on the next slide You see What is important to us and I mentioned this already at the very first slide? We want to club complement private initiatives In our view There should be a coexistence of various means of payments. So to provide the Citizens with a choice of various options what you have already now So you can choose between cash you can choose between a debit card credit card You can use one of these cards in order to back your mobile phone payments. You can pay in the Internet e-commerce with Payment service providers. So you have very many choices and we want to continue to have that and We assign a huge importance to the private sector here One of the reasons why we do that is that we consider now and in the future that the private sector Is and will remain more innovative. So we believe that The decentralized reflection of private Firms brains will come up with better ideas new ideas, which can be Decentralizedly tested some my may fail others might succeed and this ensures the best solution to the citizens So we believe in the innovative power of the private sector Us as a central bank. We do not have the ambition to take up the front end in that respect in that context and Also, we have no ambition. It's not our aim to take away the deposits from the citizens on our balance sheet some fear that there's a bank run and Immediate bank run in terms of financial distress or structural disintermediation it's not our intention to foster or accelerate such a process and the final element in this context is that we would foresee that the intermediaries the service providers between the digital euro and the retail Users should be offered preferably through institutions that are probably overseen and supervised and Part of the European regulation on the next slide I Can show you the two fundamental types of how a Digital euro could look like. So these are the basic concepts the basic distinctions How it could look like the first one is an account-based means of payment That is you can see here on the slide Two citizens man and woman they can exchange their payment the settlement of which could be done by a central Institution could be done by a fast Settlement infrastructure like tips that we have already in place But as you see here, you would have a central institution Where the settlement takes place? The other this the other Possibility other option would be a bearer solution or sometimes it's called a token solution So this would mean the transaction and the settlement would take place between two individuals without a central Institution or party for the settlement. So this is closer To what you know already from cash, whereas the first one is more something like you have an You have a transaction from bank account to bank account. So these are the fundamental two versions forms that you have but They two could of course in reality coexist on the next slide Some more notions ideas how a digital euro could or would look like so if you imagine how it would look like it would probably look like Eddie any other private means of payment that you are familiar with So the difference wouldn't be too big or noticeable It would be important that it's available throughout the entire euro area and In the future at least conceptually that has to be reflected upon also outside It has to serve all areas of the population and all areas of the euro area So this is about the need to respect and aim at financial inclusion so the Option of having a new electronic means of payment Could help those unbanked or underbanked in some areas in particular young people in some areas of the euro area to foster financial inclusion at the same time is an important aspect That shows that we have to keep cash some of our elderly Citizens might be a bit shy of embarking on to a very innovative means of payment like a digital euro So for them it is important that we also keep and that's our promise to issue cash also for the future One very important issue is that we have to respect privacy. That's why many people Want to stick to cash so a digital euro has to deal with this issue the high demand In terms of privacy at the same time we have to be aware that regulation is also on such a trend that Anti-money log laundry legislation is there. So there a balance probably needs to be strike by definition a Digital euro would be normally risk-free. It's central bank money and central bank money is a risk-free asset So that's very important and It's understood that this feature needs to be there And last but not least in this context light cash a Digital euro would be free of charge for its basic use for the payers on the next slide You see that in order to come up with a viable solution. We also need to reflect upon potential risks Reflections concerns that are definitely out there. We cannot deny that there are concerns they I Have listed here three among which are central banking So what are the consequences for central banking monetary policy? what would be the consequences for Economic and the financial system the financial stability and finally the citizens there are concerns We have to reflect very carefully increase the resilience and avoid shortcomings and of course disturbances We have to reflect very carefully on the design features In order to cater for the before mentioned issues of privacy There's an issue of whether or not a digital euro would be remunerated in various interest rate environments for example, it makes a difference if you are in an Interest rate environment of four percent or zero percent or below zero percent That are aspects that needs to be investigated carefully And then of course there is technology We have to be very carefully in checking whether a decentralized solution Would be superior to a centralized solution how this could look like and of course we somehow need to find a solution for offline payments if we want to have the same level of service as Cash provides on the next slide You see we are currently where we are currently in our process as mentioned We've started the public consultation in exchange with the citizens with stakeholders the industries Associations you name it it will end In January 12th at midnight and I invite everybody to also fill our questionnaire That is on our website. You will still have another yeah, two and a half weeks or three weeks or so to fill that Questionnaire in order to submit your views For us it's very important to get the input from the citizens because we want to to know and find out on how The European citizens would like to use a digital euro. It's very important to us and At the same time we want to engage with public authorities Industry associations banks service payment providers and market participants in order to also to reflect on their concerns and See what they are expecting from a fit for purpose solution So yes Now my screen is dark There we go. Yeah, we go again. Okay, so I While my screen is dark I sweep a shift to my offline solution Assuming that you can see and hear me So during that during that period of the public consultation Which is in our Understanding a process of active listening. We are also Continue to do the conceptual work. So all the reflections that I Showed you in a way On a high level has to be thought through in more detail more granularly And also we have started already so in parallel to the public consultation with testing and experimenting on potential technical solution so this is going in parallel and It's the preparation For any decision that has to be taking taken in the future So notice a decision has been taken so far What we aim at is once we have the results from the public consultation We're going to assess this Present this to our highest decision-making body the governing council The governing council will take a decision by the mid of next year Whether or not to start a project to investigate on the feasibility and also the Desirability of a digital euro so that will also then take some time before a final decision on A viable digital euro will be taken and for the time being it's not clear When that decision will be taken But the objective is to be prepared once The need arises and once the scenarios that I have described at the very beginning Tend to materialize. It's very clear. There's a lot of lead time required. It's a major Logistical endeavor, it's a huge project that needs time and we don't want to be taken by surprise So there the key message is we need to be prepared and we are working hard to do so and With that I would like to stop my monologue now and hand over to Kiarra again, and I'm very curious To hear your Comments and questions. Thank you very much So thank you very much, Jürgen for that really interesting presentation and for your grace and continuing on Under pressure of some technical issues at our side So I'm sure that by now our participants have some questions in mind And of course if your organization has already done some research into this issue Please feel free to share that with us as well We won't be taking any questions in the chat, but if you do have a question, please just raise your electronic hand The button should be located in the bottom right corner of your screen. It can be very small so so just have a look there and Then once you've asked your question raise your hand I will call your name and my colleagues will connect you and then we should be able to hear you and Hopefully see you as well We would encourage you to turn on your camera if you ask a question And I would just kindly ask you if you could state the name of your organization Before you asked your question And of course to lower your electronic hand afterwards So I will just give you a few minutes to go about raising your electronic hand And yeah, I'm looking forward to your questions as well If you do have issues finding your electronic hand Please talk to my colleagues in the chat and they will be able to help you I'm sure you must have a question or two after that very detailed Presentation so yeah, we very much look forward to hearing from you And we're definitely ready to answer any questions you might have. Oh, and I see that we do have one question coming in Martin Schmalzried The floor is yours. Please just give us a couple of seconds to connect you and we should be able to hear you very shortly Yes, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you Okay, so I'm Martin Schmalzried from Kovacic Families Europe family association Representing the interests of families and financial services and many other topics We obviously don't have an official position on this yet because it's a very fresh topic But let me just ask a few questions and maybe a comment also thus far so Basically, what would be the added value of the digital euro besides the fact that it's risk-free and free of charge to use Because for any of you that have used an ERC20 issued stablecoin You can do much more besides payments with it. You can invest you can trade You can do plenty of things you can send it to the other side of the world very easily You can even create an account without KYC and so it's just as easy to use It's maybe just a little bit more expensive, but the technology might actually get rid of the costs and Then the comment is that for the moment What I suspect is that making sure that all you citizens have a unique verified account with the ECB would make it much easier To send a stimulus like the Fed did To boost consumption and I'm wondering if that's why you're working so hard on advancing on a CBDC solution And if you start to openly envisage such a solution We very much like to be part of the conversation Because adding yet another tool to micromanage the economy to tick up, you know Consumption and all this is not necessarily the way out of the crisis at least from my understanding and the MMT schoolbook might not have all the answers For you know using those kind of tools. Thank you very much Thank you very much Martin for your questions, which I'm happy to try to answer So the first question of where's the value added? You mentioned yourself that the Solution that you had in mind and that which you are apparently promoting here Would be slightly more expensive So definitely as a means of payment it would be a value added to have a Central bank digital euro that is first risk-free and in its basic usage free of charge That's a definite and important value added. We are convinced of that second the idea and the concept of the digital euro as we are presenting it now in the conceptual phase It's not an investment asset. It's a means of payment. So we are not trying to attract investors we try to support we try to Offer a means of payment of the highest standard. It's not supposed to be an investment In the same vein You mentioned monetary policy There are potential reflections on how Monetary policy could be applied upon a digital euro, but This is not a monetary policy instrument now. This is a means of payment We are currently not in an advanced phase discussing reflecting on inventing new means of monetary policy instruments the current conceptual Investigation the experimentation experimentation is not about monetary policy at one point. We have to reflect how this fits into the whole universe of portfolio of instruments and the like but this is not about monetary policy Likewise the question of stimulating is not part of the current Reflections, I hope that answered your questions and I'm happy to take more Thank you very much Jürgen And we have another few questions coming in here. I can see so I think we will Turn now to Jean Alex from the BEUC Jean if you could turn on your camera, that would be great as well so we could see you But we should be able to hear you very shortly Jean Alex you hear me Yes, we can hear you. Okay Thank you. I am from Bergs European Consumer Organization We have already some discussion with the ACP on the subject. So I have a lot of questions One important point for consumers in the use of cash is anonymity Do we have some guarantees that the use of cash will be anonymous? Second point is about fees when you say that cash is free of charge I am sorry today cash is not at all free of charge. It's more more expensive for consumer to get access to cash With the new fees on ATM and that kind of thing. So how can you guarantee that? third in our opinion from BEUC is that the Digital euro should be a bearer instrument. That means like cash Electronic monetary unit or token that you can use even when you have an electricity outage If there is no internet connection, if there is no electricity If it's a bearer instrument, you can use for cash. That's my three first question I can have some other but if you cannot already answer to these three one Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. The questions are already very meaningful and Happy to take them Anonymity is definitely one of the most important features of cash and This plays an important role in our investigations. We are fully aware that The demand of citizens is that they ask for a certain level of anonymity At the same time we are aware that the trend goes in the direction that the regulation in terms of Anti-money laundering Counterterrorist financing and the like is on its way. You have regulations on Cash payments to banks and the like so the environment is as it is we this is a conceptual challenge We are happy to take your opinion on board We have the exchanges with your organization already so This is a challenge. It's one of the most Important issues to find a solution on how to guarantee a certain level of anonymity for the solution of a digital Euro now the cost of Getting cash That you might get from your banks is the cost that Intermediary imposes it's not the issuer of cash who charges the citizens for that So the basic usage that we have in mind is providing issue issuing a central bank digital currency digital euro It's not completed completely excluded that some intermediary services in between might Also add fees for their services, but this we are not there yet Our understanding is that for the basic usage of our digital Euro issued by the ECB No charge, but no fee should be charged I Presented two options of how Conceptually a digital euro could look like one was the account based one was the bearer or the token and we are in the investigation of what would be best and The combination of both would be possible. So Even a bearer solution would not necessarily require To cancel the idea of also or combined having an account-based one. So you mentioned the Scenario of an Placout and of electricity. So if you have a combined solution, so you have an account-based Solution plus a bearer based solution if you have an Outage of electricity supply you could still then use the bearer and as I mentioned A couple of times today and our policy makers do so too It's not foreseen to abandon cash. So the There are reflections in the technical solutions on how to make sure that even in the absence of Electric supply a bearer solution could work, but as a fallback solution cash should also still be there Great. Thank you very much. You're going for that I think we have another question here from Claudio Zeetz So and we should be able to connect to you now And I would encourage you to turn on your camera if you would like to do so So please bear with us for a moment while we connect you Yeah, thank you very much and Claudio Zeitz from the Federation of German Consumer Organizations in Berlin And I think there are many interesting Potentials for the for the digital euro that could for example lie in more privacy resilience Financial inclusion and you alluded to all of them. Thank you for its very Good illustration and explanation But you also pointed out this and that it's very important So far for the ECB to Include existing solutions, you know, you mentioned not crowding out and private solutions and all that and From our perspective there there's a strong conflict between the two potentially on the one hand Meeting these non-commercial objectives like financial inclusion privacy Very low fees. Maybe no fees resilience, you know adding layers to an existing system making them less efficient from a commercial perspective and so my question would be Could you perceive adding a new infrastructure? Beyond existing bonds because we think Digital euro is not just it's not just an item, you know, but it From our understanding it has to be a whole new infrastructure. Thank you Thank you very much for that visionary question The the challenge and the endeavor that we are currently in is is a huge one. So I showed you a couple of Concepts that potentially provide solutions options to be combined to choose. There are many trade-offs. So I Mentioned and the the previous question showed that too There is a trade-off between the level of an anonymity that you want to give to the citizens at the same time you have Requirements in terms of regulation. So a balance has to be found there It's huge the endeavor and the challenge is huge Now wherever it is possible we would like to Use the infrastructure that is there so infrastructure when I say infrastructure maybe to make that clear Amid your question. I'm talking about let's say the the settlement infrastructure. So where the money is Settled in between banks. That's already there and it's all digital anyway, but it's it's for wholesale banking if you will now We are able to use this we have been developing these infrastructures in the last years make them faster We have now tips that makes payments They can be settled within Parts of seconds very cheap very fast all around the clock every day of the year So the infrastructures the electronic infrastructures that are there they have been developed and of course We want to take advantage of this when you now think of infrastructures in a broader sense or also the The idea of disintermediation of doing payments without banks without Firms and the like if we would if a central bank would start from scratch now that's in a vision you could reflect upon but you have to be aware of the Enormous challenge that you would have if you if you change an existing Ecosystem of how a financial sector a banking system is working. So now to replace the whole System as it is would come at very very high cost. So in terms of efficiency and also in terms of effectiveness, it's probably a better approach to rely on the existing system as it is and To develop it further where the need is be but then also Try to strive for the highest and best solution that you can find Perfect. Thank you very much. You're going for that. I think we will now go over to Mark Beckman from positive money and Mark just gives a couple of moments of why we try to connect you And I think after that we will have a question from Benedicta Ruprecht So mark, please go ahead when you're connected Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you now Perfect. And thanks for the event. I'm working for positive money Which is an NGO based in Brussels that is working towards a more fair, sustainable and democratic your zone We think that it is really important for a digital year to be accessible and safe for all citizens and More broadly, we think that a digital year allows opportunities to rethink the financial system from the ground up as well as to rein in the power of private banks For example, if you would imagine that sent or that citizens prefer Digital digital year over putting their money into private banks Then we feel like this would not necessarily be a bad or disruptive thing Because these funds could be landed back by the central bank to commercial banks based on the interest rate And I'm curious now if you consider it in your research these more broad stem equations And what would be your intuitive response to them? Thank you Thank you very much for that question, which is also quite visionary if I may so Of course, there's a discussion Out there in the general public with the NGOs of which you are part of Which sometimes comes up with critical questions on the financial system as it is the critical discussions have accelerated after financial crisis 2008 and 9 and that discussion is Justified and legitimized now our question within the central bank community being defined as it is being obeying regulations and laws on the highest level within Europe We don't have that discussion. We have our mandate and we have to provide the solutions and Where we see a need to change things within that mandate within that system within that environment we try to improve and Where there's a need we change Your question so so we are not challenging the idea of a bank-based Financial system. We are encouraging the Political movements that go in the direction of more Market instruments in order to finance the European economy, but we are not in the position to come up with a Proposal to replace the whole financial system as it is as we know it and our Rationel for providing a potentially new improved solution a digital euro would for the time being Within the environment as it is so we are not Coming up with proposals to exchange the whole system If that will be the case one day Because of the political discussions who knows but that's beyond our mandate Thank you Mark for your question and what we now have another question from benedicta rupert But she's having I think a few technical difficulties. So she sent the question over to me here So her question is I mean she is From it's a cave in I think so at the Chamber of Labor in in Austria And her question is whether it will be possible to use a digital euro without using electronic banking Generally so as a normal course of action. So would you have to use electronic banking? I Love that question to it depends So as I try to show in one of the slides at the beginning or in the in the middle There are two basic conceptual solutions One would be an account based so citizens would have a an account with a central bank There you somehow have to be connected in order to make a settlement to make that payment So if I want to make a payment to Kiera It has to be from my account to hers and normally there should be some Intermediation in between and the settlement would take place at the central bank So we need we would need to be connected. That's the account based conceptual solution The alternative to that is the bearer or token solution. So Kiera and I would have Devices maybe the mobile phone you could think of other tokens as well and we could exchange Value of that digital euro without being connected. So technically You could think of solutions with Bluetooth or the like but this that just make that out now up now out of the blue But such a bearer solution could and should be indeed be possible without being connected without Intermediation and without the need of access to electricity and potentially those two Conceptual solutions that are distinct they could also be combined. So you could have both but in any event the Reflections have to take account of a solution that would be possible offline and that would be possible without then a bank Thanks benedicta for that question And I think we can go back to Jean Alex. I believe that you have another question So please bear with us a moment while we connect you Thank you. Just a question to to complement the question and the answer you have done to benedict Physically where will be Located the account because you say that it's a central bank account But It's going through an intermediary. So I guess that intermediary will be a bank or Or do you imagine any other institution? What what would be the infrastructure? How it will work in practice this account in digital euro so the Because you have also the aspect of how as a consumer I transform my My phone that I have in a commercial bank in Digital euro and I think there is also a need of strong strong customer authentication We'll do the strong customer authentication Just to to to elaborate a little more on the practical functioning of the account Again, we are we are currently in the phase of Public consultation and in parallel conceptual conceptual deepening and reflection on Potential solutions that need to be tested that needs to be further further analyzed. So All your questions are valid, but there is not yet an answer in principle. What is clear? The account physically if we have an account based solution is at a server With a central bank you would need probably to have backup systems and the like But you can also think of decentralized solutions where you wouldn't have to have servers But that is all under investigation. So the Superiority or how to combine Decentralized solutions potentially based on distributed ledgers Centralized solutions with servers where you put them are they maintained solely by central bank communities? Are they maintained by intermediaries from the private sectors? These are open questions still to be answered. So we are not There yet user authentication will be very important by all means But that's then only later to be investigated when we are approaching the testing of potential prototypes, but The Physical placement In the first round of reflections very much depends on whether you we aim at a decentralized solution or a centralized solution and We are not There yet to answer that definitely Thank you, John. I don't believe we have any more questions at the moment But we are coming up to about five to the hour But if you do have any more questions, we can maybe could take one more and but please raise your hand now I think we may have one further question And I think it's from a Vinnie Pran Ivan. Sorry if I pronounced that wrong But we should try to connect you now. I think this would be our last question of the day Hello. Oh, hello. Hi. Hi, it's Vinnie Pran Ivan from the Portuguese Consumer Association deco I just want to follow up on Jean's question regarding the role for intermediaries But it's crucial for consumers to understand what is the design just Due to the very significant fact of fees that may be charged in that role of intermediaries So just to make sure that whenever the design is thought of and the further steps that are taken It is necessary to take into account that the role of fees and charges that may be put in place by these intermediaries if it's a decentralized solution may result in a none so Relevant or interesting solution for consumers per se just to give an example the instant payments Solution that has been put in place and has been somewhat pushed forward in the digital agenda Has in some member states in the Portuguese case is one of them Resulted in almost a failure for consumers as the prices Practiced a put in practice by commercial banks has pushed consumers away from this solution So that was my idea and my comment. Thank you very important question and The that you pose it basically again shows how important it is indeed. So again This is a question that needs to be answered properly We don't have a definite answer now one basic idea is that These intermediaries from the private sector are supposed to be in competition So we previously heard that the excess to cash is not necessarily free So there are banks who offer the excess to ATMs cost free for their customers others charge money others in remote areas where you have a lot of consumption in Shopping centers are the like you have independent providers of cash machines demanding higher fees so in a competitive environment the hope is that the best solution to the customer at the lowest potential cost is offered and within a competition the best or if the Customer prefers it the cheapest solution will be offered our aim is to Make sure that the basic usage will be free of charge in any event it's to be expected that Additional services which is basically out of the the remit of a central bank if someone provides a better service More features and the like which are not classically the features that you would provide As a central bank that their services might be charged hopefully in a competing environment and the best Can ask for some fees others can't so but we would not interfere with Competition but we want to make sure that the basic user usage would definitely be charged for free of charge That that's the goal. That's the goal Thank you very much Renee for that question and with that, I think we're one minute of the hour So I think it's probably time to end this webinar And I'd like to thank you very much Jorgen for joining us today for this discussion on such a fascinating and complex topic as well as all of you if you're very valuable contributions and questions We would really be interested in hearing your feedback from today's event and there should be Short survey which will be posted in the chat. It will only take about two minutes to fill in But we'll be very interested to know about how you feel about this webinar But also other topics you might like to hear about in future such events So if you have any other questions in the meantime, or you would like to talk to us You can always do so through our email address at civilsociety at ECB dot Europa dot EU So we very much look forward to seeing you again at the next event and thank you all and good afternoon