Digital banking
Byte-sized fortunes
Central bank digital currencies are the industry’s hot topic, but owning to its stellar reputation for digital innovation, it seems like CaixaBank is taking the lead in developing a digital euro. Jim Banks speaks to Mariona Vicens, the Valencian giant’s incoming head of digital transformation, about its role in the digital euro project, and asks David Puente, global head of client solutions at BBVA, about why Spanish banks are leaders in the digital space.
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alk of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) has become rife across finance. Their backers are keen on the advantages that digital cash
offers as a safer, faster and more flexible alternative to notes and coins. Their critics, however, suggest it could give governments, through central banks, too much control over the cash of individual consumers. Whichever camp you are in, the truth is that CBDCs are coming. China is in the midst of large- scale trials of a digital yuan, while the European Central Bank (ECB) is considering launching a digital euro by 2025. Across the Atlantic, the US Federal Reserve is considering whether to engage
in a similar project, even as other countries seem destined to follow. Two questions immediately spring to mind here. First: What would CBDCs mean for the global financial system? And secondly, why are Spanish banks so prominent in digital innovation projects in Europe?
That second query is prompted by some striking facts. At the end of 2022, after all, 54 financial institutions put themselves forward to pilot digital euro payments in a proof-of-concept project, of which a staggering 29 were Spanish banks, including BBVA, Sabadell and Santander. They, in turn, are readying themselves for the ECB’s digital euro
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