Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank (ECB), has given her word that the proposed Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) for the region, called the Digital Euro, will not be used for commercial purposes.

Speaking at an event in Frankfurt on Wednesday, Lagarde reiterated that the ECB is not designing the Digital Euro in a way that makes it easy to collect and trade user data. Lagarde said the ECB is not in the business of trading user data, assuring stakeholders that privacy will be a front-line focus for the bank.

The ECB chief cited data from a survey conducted by the bank in 2021 in which respondents mentioned privacy as an important feature they would like to see in a Digital Euro.

With the Digital Euro billed to make a complementary cushion to cash as a payment tool within the EU, Lagarde noted that the ECB is offering “the guarantee that those payments will not be exploited for commercial purposes” and that the commercialization of a CBDC is typically notes “…the business of a central bank”.

Promising that the Digital Euro, scheduled to be piloted next year, will protect citizens, Lagarde noted that it will be another note with a little less anonymity. Most central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, have highlighted the fact that their CBDCs will be designed with a visible focus on privacy.

The race to develop a CBDC is now the front line for central bankers who are pushing to stop crypto dominance, including Bitcoin and stablecoins as payments. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), up to 100 countries are currently well invested in launching a CBDC.

The race to control the financial and payments landscape of central banks through the launch of a CBDC gained momentum in recent years, a time when the Bahamas and Nigeria launched a functional digital fiat currency.

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