Privacy and anonymity

The European Central Bank (ECB) concluded its public consultation on the digital euro last week and received over 8,221 responses, submitted by citizens, firms and industry associations. Payment privacy is the most requested feature for the potential digital euro.

A coalition of 51 consumer, privacy, and civil rights groups express support for legislation which would prohibit brick-and-mortar retailers from refusing to accept cash or charging consumers more for paying with cash.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we pay. Some central banks have accelerated their digital currency programmes. This would provide governments with frightening new powers.

Despite the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic, the payment system has weathered the storm; no systemic outages of core payments infrastructure have been reported. Payments systems - cash and non-cash - have proved resilient and robust and have continued to enjoy trust from the general public.

Speaking at Slush, a Finnish student-driven technology event, Alex Gladstein Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation makes a strong case for financial privacy. The lack of options in terms of transaction methods opens the door to exploitation by authoritarian regimes and surveillance capitalism.

As Facebook publishes its white paper on Libra, the code-name for its future global digital currency, it is probably timely to reflect on the value of privacy and more particularly the value of privacy in payments.

Data Protection Day is an international effort held annually on January 28. Amidst the importance of safeguarding data and enabling trust, cash should be considered a viable and secure alternative.

Central banks must not ignore cash's capacity to protect people's privacy and anonymity and this should become a key topic of discussion for any future debates about an all-digital central bank-issued currency.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) concludes that cash has a number of advantages which cannot be matched by any electronic payment method, at least for the time being. Those features explain in large part why cash is still widely used by consumers. They also underline why the idea of a cashless society should be buried.

Cash is a blessing not a curse.

International travel is a large and growing market. It is cash intensive.