The European Union could have electronic currency – and monetary protection

In a package of all kinds of new financial proposals on Wednesday, EU commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis and Mairead McGuinness laid out their hopes for safer digital payments.

We enhance consumer protection against payment fraud. The number of people being scammed is worrying, McGuinness says at a news conference in Brussels.

Among other things, they want to increase the possibilities of compensation when someone is a victim of fraud, oblige banks to better inform their customers about the risks and make it possible to easily verify that the account number and the recipient of the funds mentioned actually belong to each other.

At the same time, the authority wants to strengthen the protection of cash and its users. Requirements and obligations when it comes to accepting cash should be set out by legislation, based on a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union in 2021. Member states have to, among other things, keep track of situations in which someone is refused cash – and also make sure From the possibility of withdrawing cash, for example via an ATM.

The Commission also introduces essential legislation to be able to introduce a digital euro, with the same legal status as cash. At the same time, it was indicated that the decision to introduce the “electronic euro” is in the hands of the European Central Bank.