# The Digital Euro: What It Means for Payments, Banks, and Financial Architecture - Channel: [ETHSofia](https://streameth.org/ethsofia) - Date: 2026-10-06 - Duration: 30:29 - Topics: Blockchain Week Bulgaria, Bojidar Ibrishimov, CBDC, Crédit Agricole CIB, DSK Bank, Digital Euro Association, ECB, F3 2026, Future Finance Forum, Tamara Schmidt, Valentin Marinov, Vladimir Stratiev, WISER, central bank digital currency, digital euro, monetary sovereignty, payments, privacy, stablecoins, Science & Technology - Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/yt-bk7Va6h9y1I - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk7Va6h9y1I ## Description With Vladimir Stratiev (DSK Bank, moderator), Tamara Schmidt (Digital Euro Association), Valentin Marinov, MD (Crédit Agricole CIB) and Bojidar Ibrishimov (WISER). Moderated by Vladimir Stratiev, the panel separates the consumer case for a digital euro, where Tamara Schmidt notes that cards and instant payments already work well, from the systemic case of sovereignty, monetary policy and access to public money. Valentin Marinov says the ECB mainly wants to defend sovereignty against foreign stablecoins, while Bojidar Ibrishimov notes that Visa, Mastercard and PayPal handle 61% of European payments. The speakers contrast online and offline models and explain holding limits as a guard against bank runs, with Schmidt arguing the digital euro would offer more privacy than cards but never cash-level anonymity. Closing pros and cons include Ibrishimov's estimate of 4 to 5 billion in implementation costs for banks and Marinov's worry that it could crowd out private payment providers. Panel at Future Finance Forum 2026, 25 September 2026, Sofia. Part of Blockchain Week Bulgaria 2026. Speakers ▸ Vladimir Stratiev, Engineering Manager, DSK Bank (moderator) Vladimir is a transformational engineering leader, who scales high-performing teams across fintech, aviation, and leading companies in the agri-tech and gaming markets. He specialises in regulated technology delivery, engineering excellence, and bridging technical execution with business impact. ▸ Tamara Schmidt, Executive Director, Digital Euro Association Tamara Ferreira Schmidt is Executive Director of the Digital Euro Association, with 15+ years in financial engineering and capital markets. She focuses on digital finance, CBDCs, and innovation, and speaks at leading international fintech and blockchain conferences. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-schmidt ▸ Valentin Marinov, MD, Head of G10 FX research, Crédit Agricole CIB Dr. Valentin Marinov heads G10 FX Research and UK Economics at Crédit Agricole CIB. Previously at Citi, Société Générale, and Dresdner Kleinwort, he is a leading FX strategist with a PhD in Finance and Economics from Goethe University and a Master’s degree in Economics from CEU/State University of New York. LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/valentin-marinov-b9a6b38 ▸ Bojidar Ibrishimov, VP Growth & Innovation, WISER Commercial strategist and transformation leader with deep expertise in AI, finance, and regulated markets. Trusted by business leaders across Europe and the GCC, he combines strategy, technology, and executive leadership to create opportunities, secure strategic partnerships, and move key initiatives from ambition to execution. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bojidar-ibrishimov-cfa-9223721a Chapters 00:00 Introduction 00:14 Opening: how money and payments are changing 02:04 What problem does the digital euro solve? 03:32 Who benefits: consumers, merchants and banks 05:27 Sovereignty and monetary policy 08:05 Europe's dependence on foreign payment networks 09:59 The biggest challenge: coordination 11:49 Can the digital euro offer cash-like privacy? 14:28 How it reaches users: wallets and holding limits 17:19 Anonymity versus privacy 20:07 Political decision or real problem? 22:43 One argument for and one against 27:06 Q&A: Is cash disappearing, and what about privacy? Blockchain Week Bulgaria: https://www.blockchainweek.bg ETHSofia: https://www.ethsofia.com Future Finance Forum: https://www.blockchainweek.bg/f3 Follow Blockchain Week Bulgaria X: https://x.com/BWBulgaria LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blockchain-week-bulgaria Follow ETHSofia X: https://x.com/EthSofiaBG LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ethsofia Telegram: https://t.me/+b-33LJUpAB5iODNk Nothing in this video is financial advice. About the organiser Blockchain Week Bulgaria, ETHSofia and the Future Finance Forum are organised by the Bithope Foundation, founded in 2014 by Vladislav Dramaliev. Inspired by Andreas Antonopoulos, it is Europe's first non-profit operating exclusively with bitcoin donations. Over more than ten years, it has supported 50+ charitable campaigns, and in January 2016 it co-founded the Sofia Crypto Meetup, now the region's longest-running monthly crypto event. https://bithope.org ## Transcript So hi everyone. Uh today we are going to talk about a serious topic something about our money not like the rest [snorts] but which is coming next. And uh I was thinking about how to start and how to present this for you. So in the past [snorts] probably 20 years the payments are changing a lot. So not only changing what the way you pay also is changing and I think also our money are changing and um like I want to ask you a question which I'll give you time to answer at the end of our session but what do you think about digital money issued by a central bank? How you are going to pay with them? How you are going to use them? I see one, two, three people which are interested in this. Not the guys at the back which are playing Super Mario but uh we'll give them them a chance after after that. So yeah for the decades back we pay uh yeah we pay with the cash financial transfers banks uh and in our days this is changing a lot and this is why we are here for the digital euro something modern something that is coming in near future let's say and uh I want to share the stage with our panelists so yeah Please welcome them. [applause] >> So Tamara, >> hi >> Bjitar and Valentine. Okay, my first question for you will be what the digital euro you are expecting to resolve in our days. Maybe tomorrow let's start with you. >> Yeah, that's a really good question to start. uh but maybe uh perhaps we can start distinguish a consumer problem and a systemic problem and I don't think if you ask for the consumer if they want another mean of payment the answer will be yes because we already have cards and instant payments and I mean other solutions and they are work uh pretty well but if you look for the systemic part then >> let's dive in in the >> you can have uh yeah some good reasons that the Europe um has to to issue the uh the digital euro like the sovereignty uh European autonomy but also because it preserves the access to public money to central bank money and we can also talk about the um fragmentation so you can look for is from the point of view of the customer but also uh from the point of view of the the system. >> Okay. When you mention system, this was my next question. Who do you think will help more in this new solution? Let's let's call it >> what sorry >> to help on who? Like banks, consumers, customers who who do you think will help more? will help more. Um that's a challenge. Uh I think the uh okay the the changing will be not only adding a new uh means of payment but more how the responsibilities and uh the value will be distributed across the the payment um ecosystem. So for consumers it's a promise that a universally accepted means of payment but uh for merchants for example can be more competition um less dependence on the existing um schemes uh for banks and PSPs I would say it's um challenges and opportunities because they remain the interface uh with the the consumer So they can innovate on top of the infrastructure but of course that are the implementation costs and all the the other costs. Um yeah tech providers uh will be important for the offline for the hardware. So it's a kind of a good uh yeah mix of um yeah different incentives and uh yeah different stakeholders. Okay, you mentioned something but let's first hear also uh the guys there and then I will jump on another question related to this. >> Okay, what benefit do you think will brings the digital euro? >> I guess >> is it working? Okay, excellent. So it very much depends who you ask, right? So if you ask the ECB, the problem that the digital euro will be solving is the problem of the loss of sovereignity when you have that invasion of I guess foreign stable coins or digital currencies, right? The ECB loves the idea of really having a big part of the payment system really controlled outside of the Euro zone. The ECB doesn't like the idea of that infringing on its ability to conduct monetary policy. If you go to the ECB, I was there last week and I was there early, right? I wanted to buy a bagel cuz I was hungry. I missed breakfast. It was an early flight and I wanted to pay and I had my Visa card. I had my Visa credit card. They said, "No, you have to go withdraw euro cash and pay." Why? Because that's the only European payment option they would accept. This is how far they go in terms of enforcing the idea of being sovereign, of owning their payment system. And then I'm pretty sure when the digital Europe finally arrives, you would have that opportunity to pay in lie of cash. So the sovereignity goes beyond the payment, right? Stable coins, digital currencies, they compete with commercial bank deposits. The more popular stable coin, the more valuable it is. It means that the ECB in its job as a central bank trying to steer the real economy by moving rates is facing a difficulty. Increasing rates usually means people are inclined to save more. The cost of money goes up. The economy slows down. However, if you're using alternative sources of wealth, if you're using different payment tools, then the impact of that imp moving rates is diminished. Same thing applies with cutting rates. So I think that again going back to your first question, it solves certainly the problem of sovereignity and that problem is quite important for the ECB and therefore they're quite serious about implementing it and hopefully down the road that is going to help them do that. But in a nutshell really they're just trying to bring the euro into the digital age. It's as simple as that because cash is disappearing anyway. So we have to get there. >> Thank you. Y here. >> Yeah, probably. Thank you. Um yeah, just uh I wanted to touch to an interesting point that um Valentine mentioned about strategic sovereignity. Um we are not exact actually aware of the extent of which we are overdependent here in Europe on foreign payment system and infrastructure. 61% of the payments currently going on inter uh in Europe are handled by Visa and Mastercard and PayPal and predominantly US participants but also 75% of uh inter um intercountry transactions are handled also by this and there are 13 countries that are 100% dependent on uh foreign and predominantly American um payment infrastructure. So this really is a question about sovereignity, about autonomy, about the ECB capacity to ensure price stability, um also predictability, uh competitiveness across markets, a control over the crucial supply chain and value creation across the whole economy. So it's um really um systematic and strategically important for Europe to have capacity to control this >> and and also just uh to add that and also access to public money because uh cash is the only central bank money that is available uh directly to citizens and uh when the use of cash continues to decrease uh especially In an economy that becoming uh more uh digital, we need to think how this access looks like in this economy that it's more uh digital. So this access to public money uh yeah needs to continue. >> Yeah. Actually my next question is related to this. What do you think will be the biggest challenge transferring from cash cash flow to digital money? Because like in in the core there is a trust let's say this is why I start centuries back we are paying cash and this and now this is like a new way of payment and the people needs to first trust on this >> mh >> new thing new technology and then start to use it. Mhm. Yeah. I think the the biggest problem it's not the technology itself but the coordination um around the all the stakeholders because if you think in all the actors that need to align so we are talking about the ECB then the national central banks then the European legislator then the banks then the PSPs merions then the tech providers then the hardware developers and then the consumer so it's a it's a huge chain that you need to uh to align and the thing is that um the design choices are interconnected. So if you look for the uh holding limits, so holding limits affects the banks, the compensation affects the PSPs, uh the obligation uh to accept affect the the merchants and you can still solve uh these problems u individually and ended up with a system that um doesn't uh work well together. So I think this this coordination it's um yeah can be the the biggest problem and not the the technology. >> And do you think this digital euro can offer a cash privacy >> maybe for three of you? [snorts] >> Well happy to uh start off with that. uh in general uh there is the idea about the offline model which the ECB has been discussing as a potential opportunity to restrict the information flow during any transaction to the different counterparties to that particular transaction. So no information is leaving say two machines or two interacting peer-to-peer type of transaction. And then you have the online model which is also part of what is happening. And as a matter of fact, the wholesale euro which was launched on Monday is an example of that most centralized exchange where all information not all but uh enough information is available so that the ECB now as a supervisor essentially someone who has to counteract or uh essentially work against money laundering or indeed any uh other misuse of the money. they have the sufficient amount of information. As regards whether that will be ultimately the case, whether the ECB will resend the opportunity of getting access to any information, I think the experience say of China with their electronic rim or the Swedish experience with the ecroner may be useful. As for the Rick's bank, the institution that launched the croner, they said that full anonymity is impossible. With regards to the Chinese, at least to my knowledge, the experience has been that the level of information shared outside of the transaction would very much depend on the amounts involved. Right? Essentially, if you're buying a bottle of water, you don't really have to share that information with the ECB on a daily basis. If you're making a bigger purchase, it helps if indeed some part of that information is shared. But ultimately, it remains to be seen what they're going to go for. All I can say is that uh and as part of your question I guess implied is that given that the ECB has to safeguard the stability of the financial system that is it doesn't want to have accumulation of bad exposure right as part of that payment there has to be some information exchange there. So full anonymity my personal view may be difficult uh however difficult it may be for people to accept but yeah happy to yeah >> thank you very much um I just wanted to shed some more light on how this whole thing is supposed to work out. So in order to gain adoption to proliferate and to be used by people to have utility value for people it needs to reach them and the intended way how it's going to reach people is essentially through commercial banks the retail banks that we all use. So um we would have something like a widget or a separate channel within the mobile banking app that would be our digital euro wallet. So we can all transfer money from uh our normal current accounts to our digital euro accounts. So where where is the difference exactly? Our normal current bank accounts are liability of the commercial bank to us to pay us um what we owe. Our deposits uh in the digital euro are essentially liability on the balances of the euro system. So they are backed by the ECB. So each each one of us would have like separate anonymized seedonimized or encrypted account in the ECB saying this person let's say me bjidar I own 100 digital euros but if I have a separate account let's say I have one with unirate if I have one with creditico I have a separate uh digital wallet with a separate €100 in that and these things need to match in the ECB. So my unique identification number would need to to match in this uh holdings. So the ECB don't know that it's me Bjidar, but they know that this number holds this particular amount. And this has to do with the holding limits that are something really crucial for surviving of the financial system because can you imagine uh having a risk-free uh option to hold your money? What happens in the times of distress? they will be run on the banks. Everyone is going for the to have in the digital euro money. So these limits are um provided for searching won't happen. So this is uh how they intend to to solve uh the anonymity problem. Of course there's a lot going on. Um a lot of questions surrounding it. The offline option is uh something like you can withdraw money from your current account exactly as you do in the ATM and put it in your offline um digital euro wallet. So you can uh nobody tracks whether you spend $80 on water or sandwich and >> we know yeah the t the typical way we know it. >> You me yeah >> just just uh I think it's uh yeah super useful when you compare uh anonymity and privacy. >> Mhm. So anonymity means that uh I can connect my identity to the transaction and privacy means that the transaction data and my identity are protected and can be accessible when necessary. So if I give you 20 eos um in cash uh so normally there is no bank or uh payment uh that creating a record uh so they can link my identity to the this transaction and then you can compare so cash is one end of the the this is the almost anonymity in most of the case but then you can compare this kind of anonymity with the other means of payments that we have today and see the level of uh privacy that they have. So then you have uh yeah cards and bank transfers. So they are really convenient but uh we have the intermediaries that can have your uh that can link uh the transaction to your identity. Then you have the mobile uh wallets that can be better in some aspects of uh this privacy and also security. So if you are using an Apple pay or a Google pay so probably they uh don't share your actual card number uh with the merion but underneath it's still a card transaction uh between your issuer and you know the the payment and network. So the digital hero is try to create something uh in the middle. So as they just uh uh mention of course that the online uh capabilities so the PSP and the bank uh know who I am for the AML uh purposes but the EOS system says that it's uh won't be uh able to link directly to my uh identity and the offline capability it's more ambitious so the the data transaction will remain only between the pay and and and the payer. So it's a kind of you know uh in the middle but it's more than we have today for all the you know the the means that we have today. So I think maybe this is uh the important question not if it's completely you know you have anonymity but if it's more uh you know privacy that we have today >> I can challenge this but we don't have enough time now. So one more question maybe uh you mentioned the ECB at the moment they're trying to how to say reframe um the framework so you can be open to pay with you mentioned China and some other currencies and do you see this like a political decision or this will actually try to solve some problems? Yeah, happy to. Uh, yeah, I think that a lot of that is uh I guess political because I guess you asked about the value. What's the problem? I think the ECB, the politicians, the officials, they do believe they have a problem which is the sovereignity. So from that point of view, a big part of the decision is already political. But with all the points that were made so far, they also genuinely believe that it's it's a it's a decision for for the better. It's going to improve uh the uh I guess the survivability the ability of the financial system to survive the onslaught from foreign like cryptocurrencies and so on. So uh whether the ECB may have to impose that decision on others. I'm not sure if that's an interesting question in of itself whether the ECB will feel compelled to make the euro more the digital euro more appealing so that people start to adopt it more quickly. We we touched upon that before the panel we were discussing it actually the euro is the legal tender. If you want to make payment in the euro zone you have to use euros and if they say the digital euro is your digital euro full stop. So all the merchants all the consumers if they want to use their crypto wallets will have to go for the euro. So that will make it a political decision as in the ECB and the politicians acting by a decree. So maybe they shouldn't care too much whether the digital euro is such a perfect competitor or substitute for anything else. But equally, if you think about that, it is not only trying to make the life of the consumers better or the merchants better. It's not like your usual cryptocurrency. It's not a stable coin, right? You're not fighting for the market. You're trying to preserve if you wish the control that they have of the money money supply uh the ability to supervise the financial system whether there's a buildup of unwanted exposure say to different countries that you don't want to have exposure to. So from that point of view I think having a political decision right even if it's not maybe the most optimal decision is not such a bad thing especially if you have that sovereign uh aspect of that decision. So I hope >> yeah thank you. We have few more minutes. I have one maybe last question for all of you. Can you tell me one uh plus and something against the digital euro from your point of view? So um the plus is um uh clearly the sovereignity the autonomy that the European financial system gains uh which is uh really really strategically important. We we cannot uh say it from utility standpoint like everyday consumers but because it won't impact that much uh our commercial interactions. However, in times of distress, this is really a fallback mechanism and a proof of resilience. Um where it will be the challenging part it's adoption because to reach people you need to on board the retail banks and there there need to be incentives for the retail banks to to compete on that level and to u advocate for um the proliferation of euro because there's a lot of operational overhead that comes to them a lot of operational expenditures it's projected to cost them around four between four and 5 billion in the upcoming years to to adopt this technology and there's should be some uh pretty good incentives for that. >> Thank you for me as well. Okay, sorry I thought it was okay. No uh I mean as I was saying I think just my answer would very much cover similar topics. uh it is the case that my only worry if I may uh is the fact that because the ECB can simply introduce the euro and among the positives people would usually mention oh you know what all of a sudden all the merchants we have a greater choice of payment systems they don't have to pay for that as much because they can always go to the euro in addition you have from the consumer's point of view as well the ability to rely on a fallback option if there's a technological issue with some of the payment systems the ECBs supposedly safer system is always going to be there. But equally, if the ECB can just go in and say, "Okay, listen, that's your payment tool you have to use. It's the one acceptable, right? It's your choice if you want to use the Euro stable coin from Sockgen, just the name, right? Or the dollar based stable coin. But for Euro transactions, the digital equivalent of the legal tender, that's digital euro. And my concern is that instead of supporting competition, lowering prices, it could actually reduce competition by crowding out uh really other providers of uh essentially private providers of uh uh payment services or digital currencies and yeah, I hope that's helpful. >> Okay. U yeah for me I think uh in favor it's because I don't think that public money shouldn't disappear simply because economy it's becoming more uh digital. So if we believe today that central bank money is an important anchor for the um economic system uh then we need to think how this anchor uh will remain in this economy uh that it's more digital um and against I would say opportunity cost because uh yeah we are talking about a really big effort uh from the legislation but also uh from uh implementation and all the the coordination. So Europe has a really good reason uh to to issue the digital money as we already talked here but uh at the same time uh the project um it still needs to to prove itself. So you need to have a really strong value proposition for each uh stakeholder uh in the chain uh and good incentives and I think uh the consumer uh the citizen is the most difficult uh one but uh yeah >> we'll see good so time for question >> time for questions uh there are a lot of questions here some of them are identical however However, I will try to combine some of them because we don't have enough time to ask all the questions, but they can be summarized. People have uh approximately two big concerns when it comes to digital euro. So, people ask for some elaboration on the statement cash cash is disappearing anyway. Uh why do you say that that cash is disappearing anyway while it's not like proved by by the fact people are using cash anyway and people are afraid of losing their privacy? Why the the question states why do you want to take away our freedom? So these are the main topics that people are touching on. So um it all comes down to again to utility um printing printing money storing money uh handing them around it's uh not the most convenient way to go about it. Of course we all advocate for for cash because it it represents uh in a way freedom. So the the task of the digital euro is somehow to preserve this freedom with uh providing the utility and the convenience of hedging of having this um payment method in the digital age. So in essence uh it terms it tries to bring um public money into the digital age because every everything that we use uh with all the conventional methods it's all um private private infrastructure private networks and uh retail bank money. These are not public money. These are not uh public resources. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah. is saying that the digital money will have more privacy than uh the means of payments that we have today. So you will have more privacy not how cash because this is impossible it's digital you need to be complying with uh AML requirements but it's more private than today. So >> yes, but maybe people don't understand that that's why they keep asking in the public sphere people asking the same questions because here you have uh something like a bubble people are really into this topic but outside of this bubble people are really having these concerns. Thank you so much. >> Yeah, >> thank you. Thank you. So yeah just one more thing as you hear this now I will not lose more time because the coffee is coming but uh as you hear this is a huge infrastructure it's a banks consumers uh digital uh uh digitalization and a lot of more things and digital euro is not a tech project anymore it's something bigger. So, we will see what the near future will bring. Thank you. [music]