 This year, the Euro celebrates its 25th birthday. 350 million people use it every day. The Euro has united us as Europeans and it is a physical reminder of our shared identity. That's definitely something to celebrate. Maybe you're close to 25 in age or maybe you remember that period in your mid-20s. For me, I know that it was an exciting time full of change and growing up. Just like the Euro is growing up now. The journey of our single currency is continuing and as the European Central Bank, we're making sure it goes in the right direction. That's why we are working on a digital Euro to be fit for the future and we are also giving our banknotes a new look. What does it mean a new look? We use banknotes all the time, maybe even every day. But did you know that they are getting a makeover? Let's unpack this together. You're listening to the ECB podcast, bringing you insights into the world of economics and central banking. My name is Stefania Secola. With me today is Sarai Artilles, who is part of the team leading communications around the future of our Euro banknotes. Welcome to the podcast, Sarai. Great to have you here. Thank you so much, Stefania. I'm happy to be part of this celebration. Sarai, you are involved in this big project of changing the face of our banknotes. It is not the first time that we are working on new banknotes. After the first Euro banknotes were introduced, we improved the security features and updated their design with the second series known as Europa series. But the theme and the motives stayed the same. Now for the first time ever, we are working to give the Euro banknotes a completely new face in terms of theme and design. My first question to you is, why is this redesign needed? Well, that's a very good question. And it's a question that we get frequently asked, I have to say. And it is more than 20 years now, if we think about it, that the Euro banknotes started circulating. And we want to create a new generation of future banknotes. And we start by giving them a new look, a new face. We want to put a new face into the Euro banknotes. And there are three main reasons why we are doing this. The first one is for security reasons. It's very normal that every central bank, across the globe, they engage in this practice to regularly update banknotes. They want to have their banknotes secure, so they want to stay ahead of the counterfeaters. They add new security features to make the task of the counterfeaters even more difficult. So it's a very standard practice that we do. The second reason is for environmental reasons. So we want to make the banknotes more environmentally friendly, or as environmentally friendly as possible. And we have been involved in making our banknotes environmentally friendly already since 2004. The colleagues have put a lot of efforts into this. And they're going to be putting more efforts into finding future alternatives to make the banknotes more environmentally friendly. And the third reason is relatability. We want to create this stronger connection between European citizens and Euro banknotes, between them and their money. And for this, we have put the public at the core of this journey. We have gone to them, and we have asked them for their input. We want to hear their views. We want to take them on board. Because at the end of the day, it's their own money. And I talk about relatability, but I also would like to talk about inclusion. Because we want to make banknotes relatable to all Europeans, but we also want to make them inclusive. And I'm thinking especially about the blind and the partially sighted people, we want them to feel secure and so they can easily use the bonus so they can feel independent when they use them. Amazing. And these are the three main reasons I would say security, environmental aspects, and relatability. But also I think it's a great opportunity for us to reinforce the message that cash is here to stay for some decades still. Cash is still the most frequently used of payments in shops. People still use cash. And yes, digital payments, electronic payments are on the rise. There's no deny of that. But we still have seen from our studies that at least 60% of the population, they still want to or consider important to have the option to pay with cash. So for us, this is very important. We want to make sure that the whole infrastructure is out there for those who need and those who want to use cash. Very interesting. Linking the euro and the ECB is also very important because many people don't know that the ECB is actually responsible for the euro. So this is a very interesting. You also mentioned security, which is, of course, very important when it comes to money. And dear listeners, if you want to know more about how to identify counterfeit banknotes, we'll link in the show notes a previous podcast episode with one of our top experts on this topic. Sarai, you mentioned another point, and that is how much people can relate to our banknotes. People who use the euro should be able to relate to it and perhaps even feel represented by it and be proud of their banknotes. That's not easy with around 350 million Europeans across 20 countries. People have different preferences. They grow up in different cultures. They speak different languages. Not that simple. How are you going to go about it? It's definitely not simple. It's definitely a challenge. And but it's a challenge that we have been perfectly aware of since the outset of this beautiful and challenging journey. And it's a challenge that has also helped us to shape the process. Because we are perfectly aware that we cannot please everyone. We're not going to make everyone happy. But what we're going to do is to try to make sure that as many Europeans can feel represented and can also feel that they are part of this. And this is why I was talking about at the beginning that we want to, we put the public at the core of this journey. And for this, we have picked the brains of Europeans and we have gone to them to ask them about their ideas, about future themes. So we conducted research with focus groups. And they came up with all sorts of ideas, very brave and bold ideas at the very beginning. And then they realized how complex this task is to come up with one idea, one theme for six bangers for 20 countries. So it was very interesting to see how they themselves, they understood the complexity of this task. And this is why also it's a process that takes quite long. And then they gave us these ideas. And with these ideas, we went to this group of experts that we had established at the time, the theme advisory group. It was called. And these experts were in charge of coming up with, well, understanding the outcome of the public, understanding their ideas and their preferences. And then proposing a new, a short list of themes that would be, and then we presented to the public. So we went to the public last summer with an online survey. And we also conducted some research in parallel to try to understand the preferences of the public on these shortlisted themes. And the themes range from all different topics. So nature-related topics, cultural topics, the future of Europe, the values of Europe. And in the end, it was very interesting to see how the results of these two surveys came together because the public, both in the online survey and in the research, they both ranked the same themes as their preferred themes. And so we ended up with three themes, which were European culture, rivers, and birds. And in the end, it was decided that we would go ahead or we would move forward to the next stage of the process with European culture and the combination of rivers and birds, which is, again, a way to show how we are listening to the public and how we're taking on board their views. So with this, last year in November, we reached the first, I would say, the first big milestone in this journey, which was the selection of the themes, I'd say, in plural, because it's two of them, by the governing council. And now we're ready for the next phase. Super interesting. And it sounds like lots of work going into this thing. And now we have the two themes, European culture and rivers and birds combined together, as you said. So do we already know what our future banknotes will look like? No, we don't know. And that's a good thing that we don't know because that means there's a lot of things and stages to come ahead. We have just established a new group of experts that have now the task and the challenging task, I would say, to come out with proposals for motifs for these two themes, European culture and rivers and birds. So the motifs, by the way, maybe this is something that is familiar to us, but motifs are those symbols that we see on the banknotes. For example, in the Euro banknotes, the doors, the bridges on the rivers, the windows. And it's a challenging task, of course, and I'm very confident they're gonna help us to come out with a solid proposal. They will present these motifs proposals to us, and we will share this with the governing council, of course, and then they will have the task to decide on these motifs. And after this, only after this, we will start working on the next phase, which is the design phase, which is the phase where things get a bit more concrete. And for the public, especially, right, it's not so abstract, like it is maybe right now, but then people will be able to see what designs will be selected, and they will have the opportunity again to have a say when we go to the public again with some design proposals. Wow, I'm super curious to see what these banknotes will look like, and I'm sure that many of our listeners are curious, too. So when can we expect to hold the new banknotes in our hands? So there's a lot of expectations about this, and I mentioned at the beginning that this is a long process. Develop new banknotes is not something that is done in one day, not only because of the complexity of having to deal with, well, 20 countries, but also the fact that we are involving so many people in this journey, right? Not just, of course, we go to the public, but there's also a group of experts that we involve in external parties to make sure that the banknotes that will end up in your pockets are secure, are safe to use, and relatable as we want it. So by the end of 2024, by the end of this year, we will have a list of motives. So those are the symbols, the motives on the banknotes. And so by the end of this year, we will have a list of these motives, and the governing council will decide on the final motives that will appear on the banknotes. And then we will start the design phase. So we will launch a design contest. And by 2026, it is planned that a new design will be selected. But let me clarify here, because everyone thinks that by 2026, we will have new banknotes in our wallets, but no, it's not the case. As I said, it's a long process. So then it will take some time to have the new banknotes in our wallets because then all the technical aspects will come into place. So we will have a design, but then there's the integration of the security features. Remember that we talked about security and how important it is for the future banknotes. So the integration of security features, technical constraints that will maybe have some impact on the design as well. So it takes quite some time and effort to have the final banknotes in our wallets. I can imagine. So basically this is a nice hook to have you back in our podcast at a certain point. And by the way, dear listeners, please keep an eye on our website and on our social media channels to stay up to date on the progress of this project. You'll find the relevant links again in the show notes. Before we wrap up, we always ask our guests a specific question. And that's for a hot tip on today's topic. So on the future of our banknotes. Sarai, what's your hot tip? I actually do not have a hot tip. Sorry to disappoint you and maybe the listeners. If I may, I will just add a bit of a personal story here. Or because I do feel actually quite privileged to be working, to be part of this journey. I also started working here at the European Central Bank with not so much knowledge on banknotes, I have to say. And when I started, I got completely hooked into it. When I discovered the passion that my colleagues and well, also the colleagues in the National Central Banks, they put behind developing new banknotes. It's just really, it's fascinating. There's so much that we just think is a piece of paper. I know we use it on a daily basis and it's just a common activity. But I wonder like, you know, if people have had some time, five minutes, 10 minutes to look at the banknotes and think about what really goes behind it. You mentioned the website, we have all the information available there. And then you see all the science that is behind the banknotes, the research and development that is behind it. All the people that work in the printing works, paper mills, the ones designing the security features. It's a wonderful thing to be part of. Wonderful, yeah. So I ask, I will be happy if at least one listener today took some time and had a look at one of the Eurobanknotes and discover what is behind it. I take the call and I'll do it myself at the end of this episode. Thank you so much, Saray. Thank you, Stefania. This brings us to the end of this episode and I want to thank Saray Artiles who is part of the communication team for banknotes for this very interesting conversation. Thank you. Thank you. Dear listeners, check out the show notes for more on this topic. You've been listening to the ECB podcast with Stefania Serkola. If you like what you've heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. In the spirit of Europe, I'd like to end in Slovenian today and say, nas videnie. Until next time, thanks for listening.