The European Central Bank has been wrestling with the issue of how to allow a certain degree of privacy in electronic payments using digital cash issued by central banks ("central bank digital currency" or "CBDC"), while complying with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML) requirements.
Eurozone central banks believe they have now established a proof of concept for anonymity in CBDCs based on a simplified payment system using distributed ledger technology (DLT). This proof of concept allows users some degree of privacy for lower-value transactions, while still ensuring that higher-value transactions are subject to mandatory AML checks. Each user's identity and transaction history cannot be seen by the central bank or intermediaries other than that chosen by the user. Automated enforcement of limits trigger additional checks by an AML authority.
While the ECB believes that the proof of concept will be instrumental in assessing how CBDCs could work in practice, it says the prospect of central bank initiatives should not discourage or crowd out market-led solutions...
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