The cooperative spirit at the heart of the digital euro

Piero Cipollone: The cooperative spirit at the heart of the digital euro

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Piero Cipollone: The cooperative spirit at the heart of the digital euro

Lecture by Mr Piero Cipollone, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, at the annual meeting of the Federation of Italian Cooperative Credit Banks (Federcasse), Rome, 17 July 2026.

Central bank speech

17 August 2026

Piero Cipollone

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Long ago, Aristotle himself noted

how money played an essential role in society as an instrument that made it possible to establish a relationship between all things and make them commensurate. But money itself is the by-product of a convention, the expression of a social agreement: it holds its value because people trust it will be accepted tomorrow as it is today. And this social agreement is enshrined in law. Without it, money would be just a simple piece of metal, a scrap of paper or a string of code.

That's why Aristotle referred to money as "

nomisma

", or the expression of the law ("

nomos

"). Today, the law grants legal tender status to money issued by the central bank. In other words, it must be accepted at full face value to settle any payment due. This in turn constitutes the anchor for the monetary system: confidence in every other form of money depends on the ability to convert it at par into central bank money.

Trust is also the basis that sustains banking and enables commercial banks to issue money. Every deposit and every loan depends on confidence in the institution behind it. Your cooperative movement was founded on making that confidence mutual.

In 1883 in Loreggia, near Padua, Leone Wollemborg founded the first Italian cooperative bank with 32 members.

Farmers already had access to credit, but they were dependent on moneylenders who, faced with zero competition, set terms of interest that were very much in their favour.

Wollemborg's solution to this was to found a bank owned by the borrowers themselves, serving only their own interests. The model spread quickly, and by 1897 there were more than 900 cooperative banks throughout Italy.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and do not necessarily reflect those of the BIS.

About the author

Piero Cipollone