cross-posted from: https://lemmy.wtf/post/19420830
Bye bye Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and many others. They can go and play "America First". We'll have our own independent system by november 2025.
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/digital_euro/html/index.en.html#timeline
There were reports about "Digital Euro" a while back, before all that chaos ensued. If they would have started this now, I'd have said that November 25 is quite ambitious. Depending on the current state of this project and how long they've been working on it, it might not be too ambitious. Still, it's a huge task and there are many ways how this might get delayed.
Also having a payment network online is one step. Having businesses and banks adopt and implement it, is another. Even if this will start in November, I doubt it'll be a full fledged alternative on day one and it will still take some months to years to get it accepted (almost) everywhere. Also don't forget, that - if they want to implement Credit Cards - banks might need to issue new cards to their customers. I don't think, they'd swap them out all at once. More likely they'll swap them out, when you need a new card (validity date over, stolen, broken,...). This will slow down adoption. Issuing virtual cards on your phone that support this network might help for a faster adoption, though.
The European Central Bank has been working on this for many years. The current crisis is not the cause but may significantly speed up resources dedicated and raise urgency of the process.
It's been some time since I read thru the proposals of the European Central Bank. But a digital euro isn't just a replacement for a credit card system. It's a difference system altogether where transactions are directly cleared with the central bank (or a certified agent) online.