President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde now says that it is time for the EU to have its own digital payment to reduce reliance on others.
Speaking when she appeared on the NewsTalk show, Lagarde said the existing platforms are all foreign-owned by the US and China, adding that the EU, therefore, need a fallback plan.
She said having a European digital payment platform will reduce vulnerabilities that arise from the current payment platform's infrastructure being foreign-owned.
“The second thing which I think is really important is to have digital payment under our control. When you think of it at the moment, a lot of our digital payment, when you do e-commerce, peer-to-peer, or you use your card or phone, you always rely on non-European infrastructure. I think we need to reduce that vulnerability and make sure there is a European offer available just in case,” Lagarde said.
She noted that the EU should now focus on strengthening what they have locally.
This, the ECB president said will play a great role in European countries regaining some independence in areas of trade, defence and finance, among others.
“We should not be exclusively focused on what is happening on the other side of the pond. We should focus on the strength we have at home and how we can regain a degree of independence we don’t have, and that applies to Defence, Trade, and Finance and from my perspective, it applies to the way money moves around Europe.
“By that I mean Capital markets which are scattered all over Europe which have to be better organised, more consolidated, converging and singly supervised,” Lagarde added.
The European Union and the US have been engaging over President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs.
They are yet to be made public, but already, they seem to
disagree on many areas.
