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this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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a proposed electronic version of the physical euro that has banks and right-leaning politicians fuming.
That should tell you enough about why we need it.
TL;DR the digital euro isn't stored in a bank, but in a digital ledger, making it impossible for banks to use it as they wish for investments, mortgages or trading.
Never again do banks need to be saved by governments from their own bad and risky investment decisions because they are "too big to fail".
From what I've read in other news, the digital euro wallet will have a hard limit on the amount you can store in it, something like 1000 euros for example. Also, it needs to be linked to a physical euro bank account. Those features combined prevent fraud and speculation. It's mostly to be used as an online payment method to circumvent the Visa/Mastercard american payment duopoly.
I can confirm European banks are actively participating in the definition and implementation of the โdigital euroโ. So the โbanks are fumingโ thing is bullshit.
Crypto-scam โcompaniesโ, on the other handโฆ
That doesn't mean bank accounts disappear. Banks will still hold your digital euros for you and pay you interest so that they can invest your money and make more money.
Nothing changes.
Banks dont pay me interest any more, lol. I have to pay account fees. So that they might be so courteous as to take my money and enrich themselves with it
What?
Either you have a lot of capital so you actually do get some returns from the bank for parking it with them, or you are very fortunate.
My german, bog standard account with a 100โฌ overdraft limit pays me like, 2 cents a year for having my account there. While billing me 10โฌ or so per financial quarter for the account. Granted i'm poor, so they cant make that much money with my "capital", but still.
That's... crazy.
Here in the UK I get a 4.25% APR savings account. It's completely free and I've already got about ยฃ20 in 2 months off just putting a little bit of money away each month. Up to ยฃ20k this is tax free as well, though I'm nowhere near that haha.
If you're saving for a home you can also open a special savings account from which you can only withdraw for a downpayment on a first home where you get a 25% bonus on your deposits from the govt, up to ยฃ1k for ยฃ4k deposited per year, all that is of course also tax free. I got about ยฃ700 from ยฃ3k of deposits.
My day to day bank account and one I get paid into by work (also free ofc), I just empty right away and plug into savings so it sits there accumulating interests, then I live off a credit card for the rest of the month, which is interest free as long as you pay it off every month, and for every purchase over ยฃ50 you can split it across three months, without interest or fees too.
Real shocker to me Germany has it so expensive.
All depends on how its implemented tbh. If its not regulated correctly it'll turn into what any digital currency is: a shitshow.
Im all for, if its done right.
Granted, i have yet to look into the proposal so no idea what they have in mind! Its on my todo list!
Other than banks in Iceland, any other European banks were affected by the subprime crisis?
In Spain, almost all of the Cajas de Ahorros (it is not the same but to not go in details, imagine a some sort of credit union) went under due the financial crisis.
They were merged and transformed into a bank that then was rescued with lot of public money from taxpayers and it never repay to the society (either by returning the money or lowering fees and mortgage interest, in fact it almost erased people savings while the board of directors increased their bonuses.
Now the bank no longer exists, it was purchased by another bank, the one with most egregious fees in the country.
That tracks. Most European banks appear to be risk averse, unlike their American counterparts. I had assumed most of them either stayed away or lightly dealt with subprime bullshit.
All the major British banks were.
UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland both. UBS required a bail out at the time.
Portugal as well. Off the top of my head, BES, Banif and BPP were the most seriously affected, such that they no longer exist.
No. Those portuguese banks failed in different years because of internal corruption. It had nothing to do to the failed investment assets that caused the subprime crisis. The Icelandic banks failed because they invested heavily in toxic assets.
It is true that their failure was due to internal corruption and not the issues that led to the subprime crisis. I misunderstood the question and concede the point.
But the subprime crisis (or the financial landscape after it) did expose the frailties (and in those cases I mentioned, corruption) of the Portuguese banks and was a non-insignificant factor in their demise. But I suppose you can say the same for a lot of other banks in other countries.
Wow. I always thought European banks were more risk-averse than American ones.
But isn't the bank lending out your money and charging interest... which they pay back (some) to you?
If that doesn't happen and the digital euro just sits under your bed, then how do savings work vs inflation?
I don't know if it's different in Europe, but where I live bank savings account interest has been so low as to be a joke my entire adult life. If your goal is to have an investment or even just beat inflation, a bank account ain't it.
It's not high exactly but here in the UK you basically can't beat compound interest in returns and predictability over time. The alternatives are investing in businesses of which none succeed or really grow and has a high barrier to entry or the gambling with 4x leverage CFDs which is closer to horse betting than any kind of investment strategy.
The digital euro doesn't stop you from keeping doing it. It only replaces cash. Instead of withdrawing cash from the ATM to keep it in your wallet, you withdraw digital cash and keep it in your phone.
True, but that would be a phone app which has to come from an official (US) app store on a phone that is using offical (US) firmware...
I'm all for having a financial system that we can use 100% disconnected from the US, but it's the details that makes this hard, not the initial concept of e-Money.
But, back to the original point, I don't know how interest would work on money in an eWallet. I'd want to keep all my funds earning for me, which means loaning to others and then getting something back... so I don't want those transactions sitting in a 0% "safe" place... I'm either saving or spending.
So, if we can just have a EU version of Visa / Mastercard as step 1 that would be best. I think that's just arriving...