An executive at major Spanish banking concern Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) has raised concerns about the digital euro and questioned what client demand it would meet.

Pablo Urbiola of BBVA's digital regulation team has chosen on European financial authorities to advisedly explore the possible issuance of a primal bank digital currency (CBDC).

Urbiola said Friday at a European Banking Federation seminar that, despite the increasing need for a European CBDC, it is non yet exactly articulate what kind of customer demand the digital euro is supposed to meet:

"Considering all the innovation that is taking place in the payments market, it is not clear which client demands a digital euro could fulfil that may not be fulfilled by other initiatives."

The executive emphasized that the European Central Bank should consider all the opportunities and risks of a digital euro, taking into account unlike blueprint options. "It is essential that the general framework designed by the ECB is flexible plenty, and that allows individual players to develop business models in a competitive space," Urbiola noted.

Urbiola said that the ECB wants to address the myriad challenges associated with the digital euro: "For instance, if a digital euro aims to respond to the decreasing use of cash, it should exist designed as an electronic version of cash — that is, simple, easy to employ, with bones functionality." Simply if a digital euro aims to answer to the threat of strange digital currencies, "it should be able to replicate some of the more than advanced functionalities of these initiatives," he noted.

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The exec said that banks in Spain are prepared for the inflow of a digital euro, stating that BBVA has participated in preliminary trials involving the issuance of the ECB's digital currency aslope 15 other major banks.

Urbiola's comments come before long after the ECB declared that the digital euro may be crucial in combating "artificial currencies" in cross-border payments. In early on June, the ECB published its almanac euro review, raising concerns over the ascension of artificial currencies led by foreign tech giants, apparently referring to Facebook'due south Diem project.