Closely involving the European Parliament in the investigation phase has been a priority for the ECB from day one. Over the course of 2022, we regularly discussed key design options in this Committee. [1] Your views provided valuable input to our work and, together with the feedback from other public and private stakeholders[2], allowed us to make steady progress.
Such interactions are essential in ensuring that public money addresses the preferences and needs of citizens and businesses in an ever-evolving digital landscape. People’s payment behaviour is changing at an unprecedented speed: over the past three years, cash payments in the euro area have dropped from 72% to 59%, with digital payments becoming increasingly popular (Chart 1).