EBAday 2025: Digital euro emerging as a transformative force

Finextra

28-05-2025

At EBAday 2025, two expert panels explored how the digital euro and real-time data can transform finance and beyond — shaping future digital money, guiding PSPs, and helping corporates and SMEs enhance liquidity through automation.
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Reinventing money
In the first panel, panellists discussed how the digital euro is emerging as a transformative force, raising key questions around future requirements and the broader benefits. Speakers Andrea Meier, DZ Bank; Bruno Mellado, BNP Paribas; Daniel McLean, European Central Bank; Nils Beier, Accenture, and Ville Sointu, Nordea Bank, were moderated by Petia Niederländer, Oesterreichische Nationalbank.
Niederländer opened by asking Beier, whether European banks are prepared given developments in the past 12 months - such as tariff policies, stablecoins, tokenised deposits, and innovations such as digital wallets and AI. Beier identified three areas of change: digital assets, international payments, and European retail payments, noting that while banks are experimenting, 'what we see as missing is a joint public private vision strategy that lays the foundation for the industry to move on, supported by the public sector.'
Following the importance of public private partnerships, Niederländer asked McLean for an update on the digital euro project. McLean outlined two phases: first, investigating the digital euro's purpose and use cases; the second, nearly completed stage, involves preparing the technology, infrastructure, and key players 'so when, and we hope the legislature, will give us a big thumbs up to go ahead with the digital Euro, we'll be ready to implement it now' explained McLean.
Sointu commenting on banks' technology readiness for the digital euro, stressed the need for customer-facing solutions, 'if you look at the definition of a bank as an intermediary for digital euro, we have to take care of all customer facing responsibilities, including changes in every customer touch point, not accounting the different form factors being discussed in terms of distribution, including physical cards and all possible digital form factors.'
Meier mentioned focusing on delivering solutions for corporate customers now, rather than waiting for international solutions. 'We need to deliver our customer needs now, we are not focusing on deliverables in three or four years. Therefore we see use cases for digital money for our corporate customers, but the use cases now are in delivering money and payment on DLT base.' Mellado added how there is a need to 'make these account ledgers from central banks, from banks, so they speak to each other in a much more efficient and atomic way. That's the key battle we have to fight.'
Niederländer then posed a question around the biggest threat to European sovereignty in payments and financial transactions. Meier discussed the importance of international cooperation and the role of the digital euro in fostering private solutions, with Sointu emphasising the role of the digital euro in solving interoperability issues.
The conversation then turned to the benefits of the digital euro, and the role of the project in supporting innovation. Meier outlined the ECB's efforts to facilitate innovation through workstreams with market participants, with McLean reiterating the ECB's commitment to facilitating innovation. Mellado mentioned the importance of addressing liquidity costs and the potential for the digital euro to improve international payments, with Beier highlighting the potential for B2B use cases.
Concluding the panel, Niederländer emphasised the need for stronger European cooperation between public and private sectors to effectively advance innovation.
Liquidity management and real-time payments
The following panel, moderated by Joost Bergen, examined how real-time data and automation can enhance liquidity for corporates and SMEs, and what's needed to achieve real-time cashflow and Treasury as a Service. Speakers included: Alexandre Eclapier, J.P. Morgan; Gauthier Jonckheere, BNY; Ritu Sehgal, Natwest; Tarun Kishore Sonwalkar, Infosys Finacle, and Wim Grosemans, BNP Paribas.
The moderator, Joost Bergen, opened by asking about the difference between real-time payments and real-time data. Sehgal explained the distinction, emphasising the complexity of the cash cycle, 'it's the whole of the cash cycle that means receiving payments and sending payments in real time. They're at quite different evolution stages, so the adoption level for one over the other depends on where the corporation is in the life cycle.'
On the need for reliable and quality data, Grosemans commented 'real time, data on demand, is key but the question is, where does that have to come from? that's where we also see an important task from our customers, to work further on strategies to ensure consolidation.'
Eclapier then summarised how real-time data and payments are seen as essential for better liquidity management and investment opportunities, focusing on three main pillars of liquidity management: 'visibility is about the data you can receive in real time. The control is where the payment fits in, how you move money from one account to another, which can happen on a real time basis. Once you have a combination of both, that's when you can optimise, focusing on the investment opportunities, reducing the boring costs.'
Jonckheere mentioned the increasing demand for real-time data driven by regulatory requirements and data analytics. 'Real time data is a big focus for clients to enable their underlying corporate proposition, this is starting to translate into the benefits real time payment could bring into certain use cases', explained Jonckheere.
The conversation then turned to the need for better data analytics and AI to support real-time decision-making. Sonwalkar noted 'It's still early days in terms of whether it will be a fully automated AI predictive Treasury as a service on Cloud, available for everybody. That's probably something that on the horizon we are all looking forward to as it reduces the total infrastructure cost and automates a lot of things. Today, what we see in the market is more modular, connected, and integrated.'
The potential for Treasury as a Service to support better liquidity management and decision-making is acknowledged, with Bergen summarising the key points discussed, emphasising the importance of liquidity in payments.