消费者对数字欧元的偏好：来自奥地利离散选择实验的见解

Consumer preferences for adigital euro: insights from a by Helmut Elsinger, Helmut Stix and Martin SummerMonetary and Economic Department November 2025 Keywords: central bank digital currency (CBDC),consumer adoption, discrete choice experiment, BISWorking Papers are written by members of the Monetary and EconomicDepartment of the Bank for International Settlements, and from time to time by othereconomists, and are published by the Bank. The papers are on subjects of topical This publication is available on the BIS website (www.bis.org). Consumer preferences for a digitaleuro: insights from a discrete choice Helmut Elsinger, Helmut Stix, Martin Summer*July 2025 This paper examines consumers’ intended adoption of a digital euro inAustria using a discrete choice experiment. We estimate a mixed logit modelto quantify the role of key attributes such as privacy, offline functionality,security against financial loss, monetary incentives, and payment form fac-tors.Our findings indicate that security and financial incentives are thestrongest drivers of adoption, while respondents do not report strong prefer- Keywords:central bank digital currency (CBDC), consumer adoption, discrete choice JEL classification:E42, D12, G21, C35. 1. Introduction How will consumers respond to the introduction of a digital euro? Which features willencourage or discourage its adoption? These are the central questions that this paper The European Central Bank (ECB) aims to introduce adigital euro, a secure, widelyaccepted digital payment method that complements cash.While the technical imple-mentation is within the ECB’s domain, widespread consumer adoption is essential for Our research informs policymakers by empirically assessing consumer preferences. Al-though consultative processes, focus groups, and surveys have provided some insights,there remains a significant gap in robust, representative evidence on consumer demandfor a digital euro. This paper contributes to our understanding of consumers’ payment We address these questions through a discrete choice experiment (DCE) embeddedwithin a survey conducted among a representative sample of 1,421 Austrian residentsaged 16 and above. The design of the experiment enables us to evaluate trade-offs and Main findingsOur choice experiment yields several insights with direct policy rele- 1.Monetary incentives drive adoption: Consumers respond significantly to mon-etary incentives. The probability of choosing a digital euro increases by8 percent- 2.Security concerns are paramount:Concerns about theft or loss have thestrongest influence on adoption.Reducing potential losses from a full loss (likea stolen wallet) to a capped loss of EUR 250 increases the likelihood of choos- 3.Privacy preferences are context-dependent:Without remuneration, con-sumers, on average, areindifferent between two privacy models—one where bankscan access personal and transaction data, and one offering full privacy. Monetary 4.Offline functionality has limited impact: Enabling offline use (as opposed toa purely online option) offers modest benefits,increasingadoption likelihood by 4 Additional findings on heterogeneity across consumer groupsIn line with our pre- registration,2we examine heterogeneity across consumer groups, yielding additional in- ˆPrivacy preferences are not uniform: Privacy-sensitive consumers, approx-imately one-third of the sample, are found to have a lower adoption intentionthan privacy-insensitive consumers. Moreover, privacy-sensitive consumers derive ˆSociodemographic differences in adoption: Younger individuals, those withhigher education, greater trust in the central bank, and higher financial risk tol- ˆSatisfaction with current payment methods influences preferences: Con-sumers who face barriers when using their preferred payment methods are 13 per- Our experimental design was tailored to enhance comprehensibility. Respondents weregiven the option to refuse participation in the experiment. Approximately 20% of thetarget population of the survey chose not to participate. These non-participants tended data privacy, less trusting of the central bank, and less informed about the digital euro.We demonstrate that, under plausible assumptions, the observedattribute-specific effects (e.g., privacy, security, offline functionality) are robust to selection effects and can be Why discrete choice experiments improve upon existing methodsTo assess con-sumer choices, we employ a discrete choice experiment (DCE), a well-established methodin empirical economics and market research. This approach, first developed by McFad-den (1974), has been widely used in various fields, including transportation, health,energy, housing, and marketing (e.g. Louviere et al. 2010, Sp¨ati et al. 2022, Jonker In our experiment, survey participants were presented with 10 different choice scenar-ios, each requiring them to choose between two versions of a digital euro or to chooseneither and stay with t