ECB's Cipollone sets 2029 digital euro target as trilogue nears deadline

Piero Cipollone laid out the ECB's full digital money strategy: a retail digital euro moving through trilogue, and the wholesale Pontes and Appia initiatives for tokenised settlement. The speech matters for the fresh financial-stability modelling on holding limits and for the concrete 2027 pilot and 2029 issuance timeline banks now need to plan against.

• ECB aims for potential first digital euro issuance in 2029 if legislation concludes by end-2026; trilogue is under way with a Council push to finish this year.
• Modelling of 2,025 banks shows holding limits up to €3,000 leave aggregate LCR at 163% and project a €127bn deposit inflow by 2034 under business-as-usual.
• Pontes launched 21 September to settle tokenised transactions in central bank money, full implementation mid-2028; Appia blueprint targeted for 2028.