The European Commission and European Central Bank are currently working together to investigate the policy, legal and technical questions emerging from a possible introduction of a digital euro.

Having just closed a public consultation on the subject, the ECB is considering whether to start a digital euro project towards the middle of the year as it looks to answer design and technical questions ahead of any decision to actually issue the CBDC.

One of the most thorny issues concerts the impact on commercial banks of a competing digital euro account from the central bank, raising the prospect of a loss of deposits as consumers switch their cash holdings to the CBDC account.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, ECB board Fabio Panetta states that the bank is not interested in competing with commercial banks: "We have explicitly and repeatedly stated that we want the banks to be our partners, not our competitors. We will offer safe money, not financial services. Offering financial services is the role of commercial banks. It would be crazy for us to do so. People already decide today whether to pay with cash, with various cards or online. In future they will have one more digital option, if they wish."

He says the aim would be to discourage large holdings of digital euro.

"We might only allow digital euro holdings up to a certain threshold, or make them unattractive above this amount by charging interest," says Panetta. "For example, the threshold could be around €3,000, which would be far more than the cash requirements of most people today. But this is still under discussion.

If banks do in fact lose deposits, "then we can make more liquidity available to them", he adds.

The ECB is looking with interest at the Chinese pilot trials of a digital yuan, which are currently focussed around the the megacity of Shenzhen.

Asked about a possible trial period, Panetta responded: "That would be a possibility. Trialling the digital euro in different cities would probably be a wise move."