Italian Banking Association Approves Digital Euro Project

The crypto news today show that the Italian Banking Association recently announced that it is ready to start working on an European central bank digital currency (CBDC). In other words, this association known as ABI recently revealed that it wants to support the implementation of the digital Euro from the European Central Bank.

An update on the ABI website published on June 28 shows that the Italian Banking Association had approved guidelines that govern its position on digital currency as well as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in general.

The ABI represents a group of banks in Italy and stated that it is now ready to “participate in projects and experiments regarding a digital currency from the European Central Bank […] to speed up the implementation of a European-level initiative.” The association further noted:

“Digital money needs to be fully trusted by citizens. To this end, it is essential that the highest standards of regulatory compliance, safety and supervision are adhered to.”

There was a specific focus on what is known as “monetary stability” and respecting regulations which are related to a digital Euro as two of its top priorities. As ABI noted, the creation of an European CBDC may allow for a greater number of cross-border P2P transactions. This would lessen the impact of the interest and exchange rates, and overall reduce the size of the bureaucratic process for payments.

The Italian Banking Association also noted that developing a digital currency in the European Union (EU) could replace the demand for cryptocurrencies, noting:

“The existence of [a European CBDC] could at the same time reduce the attractiveness of instruments of comparable use but issued by private individuals or (in cases of complete decentralization) which cannot be identified, characterized by an intrinsically higher risk profile.”

In the other crypto regulation news, we could see that France became the first country to successfully trial the digital Euro, which is fully operational on a blockchain, on May 20. Also, the Dutch Central Bank followed up on the project, noting that it was “ready to play a leading role” for CBDCs in the EU.

For those of you who don’t know, the Italian Banking Association already applies distributed ledger technology (DLT) for its internal banking system which is based on blockchain.