The French member of the ECB Executive Board, Benoît Coeur, believes
that 500 euro will eventually dropped, as the authorities warn of its
increasing use in terrorist financing and money laundering.
"We take that warning seriously," he said in an interview published today by the German newspaper "Rheinische Post".
In his opinion, today there are far fewer reasons to keep these notes that when the euro was introduced as electronic payments have increasing weight.However, he points out, limiting cash payments is a decision of the finance ministers and remember that in some countries in the euro area cash payment is still a very common practice.
He explains that the governing council of the ECB is carefully studying whether to withdraw these bills.
"We have said that those bills are increasingly being used in criminal ventures. So I think that the bill 500 will be finally removed, although it has to be done carefully," he said before insisting that cash remains crucial everyday life.
The European Union (EU) requested yesterday that the withdrawal of the said airline as a measure against money laundering, organized crime and terrorism should be studied.
Holders of Economy and Finance of the EU discussed in the Ecofin first package presented by the European Commission (EC) to try to cut off sources of terrorist financing.