The study involved 321 respondents from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, France, Portugal and other European countries. Survey participants were divided into the general public, tech-savvy people, merchants, and unbanked citizens.
It turned out that potential users of the digital euro are most interested in peer-to-peer payments, budget management and the ability to use the digital euro offline. Many survey participants named autonomy as the most innovative digital euro wallet feature. This will allow you to use it in remote areas without Internet access or in flight mode.
Respondents also noted a high degree of confidentiality when making offline payments with digital euros. However, this may raise concerns of the authorities that the too high level of privacy of the digital euro will create an opportunity for tax evasion.
The majority of survey participants found the QR code feature in the digital euro useful. It could be used at self-service points, when paying bills and shopping on the Internet. While QR code payments would be slower than contactless payments, many merchant users preferred to have consumers scan their QR code to maintain privacy.
Other features of the digital euro that its potential users would like to see are payout management, access to the digital euro through existing banking applications, and government cryptocurrency programmability (CBDC).
Fabio Panetta, a member of the ECB Executive Committee, noted that the results of this study will be taken into account when developing the state cryptocurrency. However, the ECB has not yet decided on the launch of a digital euro, and is only studying its technical and economic feasibility.
Earlier, Panetta said that the ECB plans to limit the issuance of digital euros to 1.5 trillion in order to protect monetary policy from risks and not disrupt the stability of the financial system.
Source: Bits
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