This is referring to the plans to create digital euro with GNU Taler, right?
GNU Taler (Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Resources) is a new secure electronic payment system based on open standards, free software, and advanced cryptography. GNU Taler provides privacy guarantees to the buyer while offering the possibility to audit merchants, making sale incomes transparent and fraud difficult. To online merchants and retailers, GNU Taler offers instant transaction clearance without risks of fake payment methods. Computations needed to clear the payments are efficient and scalable so that banks can pass on lower transaction costs to consumers and merchants. Consumers can withdraw money from their existing bank account into their GNU Taler wallet, detaching their spending habits from scrutiny, in the way cash does.
The NGI TALER project is funded under Horizon Europe (Pilots for the Next Generation Internet) with the aim of bringing GNU Taler to market across Europe.
Without digital euro, there is already Wero app to replace PayPal, Visa and MasterCard. At least in theory... It's a payment app that allows to pay and receive money via wire transfer from bank to bank without fee.
In practice, many banks are not enrolled in this program and I have yet to find a single business where I can pay this way. But at least replacing PayPal to send money to friends and family should be easy enough.
Well collegues, I think we must see it as a positive evolution. We can have some doubts for sure, but there are things moving onto a more independent Europe and we cannot be against that idea. So let's stay positive and we'll see what direction things are going. Keep buying European !!!
Last I heard about this, they did not fully commit on a singular technical solution yet. The closest I know being NGI Taler (FLOSS, created by a Swiss company, and plans a lauch in Euro this year), but it doesn't support offline payments yet, unlike what the digital euro's brochures say.
Hopefully this will be resolved, but I hear this is a very polarized subject since it would remove a lot of powers from the banks (by concentrating it around the ECB), and they are lobying heavily against it, and the right wing is listening.
Digital euro uh, only matters to the government and banks. Lower cost of production I'm sure. No need to store physical cash for banks.
For citizens, it's not like we haven't been using bank cards and apps this whole time. We just have been linking our payments to a bank account we hold digitally on our phones.
So, this isn't a big change for citizens. Just a lower cost for production.
Explain this to my dad, he is almost 60 years old, barely knows how to use his smart phone!
Like others mentioned, last time I saw the news, they where still confused and having conversations. What did it change?
Meanwhile my Bank is switching from Maestro (USA) to VISA (USA) for my everyday debit Card, and i must accept the change until September. I guess i have to find a new Bank after so many years.
My attention will be on the selection of providers, planned for Q2 2025.
If non-EU (and I would personally exclude also non-Eurozone, because incentives) providers are allowed in the infrastructure, especially American, Israeli or Chinese, the whole thing is not only a joke, but an extremely risky operation.