Digital Euro - ECB A recent speech entitled 'Why Europe needs a Digital Euro' by Fabio Panetta from the ECB's Executive Board began with the following statement: 'The digital euro is a necessary step to ensure that our monetary system keeps up with digital advances. It will be widely accessible and easy to use while preserving privacy - just like cash'. 'A digital euro (or dollar or pound or yuan) isn't the only issue in the increasing digitalisation of finance. Other actors, aside from central banks and existing private sector financial services providers are also becoming more involved'. For study research purposes, critically evaluate should the ECB should proceed with the digital euro project and what model of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) it should use, referring to case studies from a range of countries that have introduced CBDCs or are actively considering such digital currencies, where and any issues such as trends in Fintech and payments technologies, and cryptocurrencies