Q8: Who would be able to use the digital euro?
The European Central Bank answers:We answer them:As stated in the proposed digital euro Regulation presented by the European Commission, the digital euro would be made available to people, businesses and public entities that reside or are established in a euro area Member State on a temporary or permanent basis.
People who travel to the euro area for personal or professional purposes may also have access to the digital euro.
Moreover, people, businesses and public entities residing or established outside the euro area may access the digital euro by opening digital euro accounts with payment service providers established or operating in a country which is a member of the European Economic Area or in a third country, subject to a prior agreement concluded between the EU and the third country concerned and/or arrangements concluded between the European Central Bank and the national central bank of the non-euro area Member State or third country.
The digital euro is far from being as widely accessible as existing central bank money: The online version is inherently tied to accounts at European PSPs and onboarding for the offline version entails user identification, too— e.g., to ensure individual holding limits. These are barriers to access for a significant portion of the European population, such as children, undocumented persons, homeless individuals, and others in vulnerable situations. Physical cash, on the other hand, does not require user identification and is independent of complex technologies and costly onboarding. While it seems likely that no digital payment can ever be as accessible as cash, key design choices made by the ECB for the digital euro, in particular the digital euro accounts with holding limits per person, make the digital euro less accessible than it could be (for example, using digital payment tokens).
Furthermore, the current proposals for the digital euro are unclear on how tourists would be on-boarded without effectively enabling the digital euro to be used globally and potentially becoming a viable alternative to cash for organized crime, especially given the transitive anonymous offline function.