Mr. Barry Lowry:

That is an important question. Some of the writings and analysis carried out by the media on the whole concept of the European digital wallet have stated that there is an element of tension or a catch-22 situation. Private sector organisations will not invest in supporting the European digital wallet if there is not going to be uptake. They will want assurances from the Commission that the public want to and, indeed, will use it. I do not envisage the regulation will require that if a person wants to hire A car, he or she can only do that using an EU digital wallet. That would be difficult to implement because no two smartphones are the same. It is a big step to assume that, for example, we could write an app called the EU digital wallet, make it available to everyone with a phone, and that it would be used successfully. We will have to come up with alternatives and offer people choice. I suspect that is where the legislation will end up. As I said earlier, it is early days, but people are right to be concerned and that needs to be represented in the discussions.