is not to create a european " big brother. " in fact, the digital euro will offer unrivalled privacy in the digital space. the central bank will never be able to identify individuals on the basis of their transactions. the offline mechanism available for face - to - face payments below a certain threshold will offer cash - like privacy. and we are continuing to work on the design with the aim of maximising privacy in other use scenarios. second, the digital euro will not be programmable money. the eurosystem issues currency, not purchase vouchers. the digital euro will always be convertible 1 : 1 with other forms of money, including cash and bank account deposits. the eurosystem will not restrict the use of the digital euro by, for example, setting a period by which it needs to be used or specifying goods and services that may be purchased. third, the digital euro will not earn interest, positive or negative. it will be a means of payment, not an investment asset. fourth, the digital euro will not replace cash. we will continue working to preserve freedom of choice by ensuring that cash remains widely available and accepted. 5 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches the european commission has published a proposal for a regulation on the legal tender of cash in the euro area. the banque de france has announced the construction of a new banknote printworks in the puy - de - dome region. the eur 250 million facility will be europe's most up - to - date, efficient and environmentally friendly banknote manufacturing centre, with commissioning due to take place in stages in 2026. the eurosystem is considering designing a new series of banknotes and recently held a public consultation on how the new notes might look. in other words, our commitment is crystal - clear : cash will continue to be widely available and accepted throughout the euro area. supporting european sovereignty and integration in payments slide 8 i now come to the second issue that prompted us to consider issuing a digital euro. digitalisation of the economy raises two major challenges for payments in europe : first, our day - to - day payments are increasingly reliant on non - european participants, such as international card schemes or, more recently, big tech companies. these players benefit from significant network effects that are unconducive to competition and that promote the formation of oligopolies. european payment solutions remain fragmented despite harmonisation efforts : some solutions work in only one country, or

in certain settings, such as peer - topeer. while the widespread introduction of the single euro payments area ( sepa ) initiative in 2014 helped to standardise operating rules for credit transfers and direct debits, card payments continue to be highly fragmented. just a handful of euro area countries have a domestic card payment solution, such as france's cb scheme, and even then, using the card in another euro area country is dependent on foreign participants. the digital euro is thus intended to support european sovereignty and integration in payments. distribution of the digital euro will be entrusted to private intermediaries, such as commercial banks and fintechs that are licensed for payment services. these intermediaries will therefore retain their central role in relation to users, managing accounts, providing payment instruments, executing transactions and handling customer relations more generally. like cash, the digital euro will be issued by the central bank and distributed by private participants. the digital euro will also preserve the complementarity between central bank money and commercial bank money. we want the digital euro to act as a platform for innovation for private participants. in addition to supporting sovereignty and integration in the field of payments, it could also encourage competition in the sector and thus help to reduce the fees charged to merchants. how and when might a digital euro be issued? slide 9 6 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches to guarantee that the digital euro can be easily adopted by stakeholders, we want to ensure its smooth integration with the existing payment ecosystem. to do this, as part of our technical work, we are having close dialogue with consumer associations, merchant associations, commercial banks and other private intermediaries, both at european level and domestically. these discussions are valuable in identifying existing solutions that could be reused in their current state as much as possible, including some types of infrastructure, such as payment terminals, but also standards that are already used by industry and that would be compatible with our sovereignty objective. we also want to encourage private participants to design attractive and innovative digital euro payment solutions. the proposals put forward by the eurosystem and commission seek to define a viable business model for all participants in the ecosystem. last but not least, we will make sure that the digital euro does not present any financial stability risks. a holding limit will be set to ensure that the digital euro is used as a means of payment, not an investment asset. the eurosystem has published its initial research on this question and will go deeper in the coming months. the limit