[povik]

I see. But then again I am a bit confused by this text in the report on digital euro[0], which was recently posted on HN.

“While the Eurosystem would always retain control over the issuance of a digital euro, supervised private intermediaries would be best placed to provide ancillary, user-facing services and to build new business models on its core back-end functionality. A model whereby access to the digital euro is intermediated by the private sector is therefore preferable.“

That sounds like a bank to me. But I guess it must be so that the relationship between the central bank and intermediary will be different.

I struggle to find the defining features of these CBDCs so that it is more than empty branding. I guess you might sum it up as “bringing the central bank and currency-users closer thanks to modern technologies”?

[0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/html/digitaleuro-report.en.ht...

[danialtz]

Accounts at central banks is only one model of CBDC, called Direct CBDC, which is to my knowledge much less preferred way than a hybrid apparoach (like what’s there today), for several reasons: - managing a complexity of nation-wide banking for Central Banks is quite early at this stage, being a traditionally a government portion known mostly for policies and economics than cutting edge tech deployment. - CBs want to keep stability, and breaking down a current model of banking by introduction of a new FIAT model is not one of them

There are key needs and major requirements additionally for the CBDC that are documented in the latest BIS and ECB reports.

[nmlnn]

It's the branding that they need to get rid of cash. Playing it off as an analogue to digital switch, rather than the removal of transaction freedom and privacy.