Instant, cheap, universal and securely settled cross-border payments could become a reality in the next decade, European Central Bank officials have said.

Central bank-issued digital currency combined with domestic payment systems could deliver this, Ulrich Bindseil and George Pantelopoulos argued in a paper published by the ECB.

“The holy grail of cross-border payments can be found within the next 10 years,” said Bindseil and Pantelopoulos in the paper. Emergent technologies, including work