Digital Euro Privacy Likely to Be Limited: Euro Finance Ministers

Finance ministers from euro-area countries would expect to take a risk-based approach to anonymity for future digital-euro transactions, Ireland’s Minister of Finance Paschal Donohoe said Monday.

A greater degree of privacy would likely only be possible for low-value digital euro transactions, including close-proximity offline transactions, said Donohoe. He was speaking after a meeting of the Eurogroup, the formation in which euro-area finance ministers gather, and which Donohoe chairs.

Ministers had agreed that the digital euro should be designed so it cannot be used for “unwarranted purposes,” Donohoe said. The level of privacy “should not be inconsistent with the delivery ...