“The EU is very close to agreeing on what it means to own digital assets. The Council of the EU is laying the groundwork for European digital identity (eID), which will serve as the EU’s digital wallet. What does that fusion look like? Consisting of 27 countries, the EU accounts for 447 million people. Although its nominal GDP has fallen in 2022 when the EU sanctioned Russia, it is still trailing behind the US at $18 trillion vs. $24 trillion, making it the third largest market behind China. It is, therefore, important when this economic juggernaut sets the rules of engagement on digital assets. The Council of the European Union is the EU’s governing body. As of Tuesday, the Council revised the regulation on the European digital identity (eID). This would be a personal digital wallet hosted on people’s smartphones like other apps. Across EU nations, the eID would follow common technical standards and compulsory certification. This would avoid standard/update fragmentation and security holes. However, this “Union toolbox” is yet to be developed. What would the eID wallet look like?”

“Forcing banks across the European Union to offer instant payments in euros is a “seismic” shift to make the economy more efficient and reap savings for businesses and customers, the bloc’s financial services chief said on Wednesday. Mairead McGuinness proposed a draft EU law that will require banks across the 27-country union to offer and receive “instant payment” (IP) services for a fee that is the same or lower than they charge for traditional credit transfers.   Currently, some banks charge far more for an IP transfer, up to 30 euros ($30) in some cases, compared with traditional transfers. “Moving from ‘next day’ transfers to ’10 seconds’ transfers is seismic and comparable to the move from mail to e-mail,” McGuinness said in a statement.”

“Banks in the euro zone would be required to provide ‘instant payments’ in the single currency 24/7 under draft European Union rules seen by Reuters. The EU wants to modernise payments so that money can be transferred from one account to another in seconds, at any time of the day or night, compared with existing card payments and direct deposits which can take up to several business days. The new rules form part of the bloc’s policy of “fostering the development of competitive home-grown and pan-European market-based payments solutions” in a region where U.S. duo Mastercard and Visa dominate cross-border retail payments.”

“Amazon is among five companies to develop a digital euro prototype for the ECB. Central bank digital currency (CBDC) development is happening now. China has tested the potential uses of the digital yuan; the U.S. has explored CBDC design options, and the European Central Bank (ECB) has recently finalized the panel of firms joining to create front-end prototypes for the digital euro.”

“The European Commission has launched the EU Digital Finance Platform, a website designed to build dialogue between fintech players and supervisors. First announced as part of the EC’s digital finance strategy in 2020, the platform went live last week, complete with a virtual launch event attended by Commissioner Mairead McGuinness and Verena Ross, chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority.”

“Despite being illegal since 2014, IBAN discrimination – when a company, bank or institution insists you need a local IBAN to pay and your IBAN from another EU country is invalid – is still commonplace throughout Europe. This is why Wise and other financial institutions have launched the Accept My IBAN initiative, allowing consumers to report discrimination without any administrative hassle.According to European law, any IBAN issued in a EU Member State needs to be accepted in all Member States. In spite of this, the issue still persists, and it is not difficult to find recent examples of IBAN discrimination.”