By offering a digital, risk-free common denominator, a central bank digital currency would facilitate convertibility among different forms of private digital money. It would thus preserve the singleness of money and protect monetary sovereignty. The ECB is working on a digital euro precisely for these reasons.
[43] To preserve its crucial role, public money must also continue to be used as a settlement asset for wholesale financial transactions. [44] The Eurosystem currently provides settlement in central bank money for wholesale transactions with its TARGET services. And we are exploring what would happen if new technologies were to be widely adopted by the financial industry.