Slovakia (Slovak Republic) CBDC Tracker

Slovakia is currently in the research phase. Slovakia’s central bank, Národná banka Slovenska, has largely deferred to the European Central Bank’s work on the digital euro, but it has contributed its own research during this time as well. Notably, not everyone appears on board with the digital euro in Slovakia. In 2023, legislators amended the constitution to ensure cash remains an option for payments.

Note: This page is dedicated to the work done by the government in Slovakia. However, Slovakia is a member of the European Union and Eurozone. If the European Central Bank launches a CBDC (referred to as a digital euro), then this page will be changed to reflect that. Until then, the Eurozone page has notes about the development of the digital euro.

CBDC History and Development

The Národná banka Slovenska published a consumer survey in 2021 that covered both cryptocurrency and the digital euro. Notably, the survey found that although 92.8 percent of respondents had heard of Bitcoin, only 32 percent of respondents had heard of the digital euro.

Facing growing concerns that the rise of CBDCs could mean the end of cash, legislators in Slovakia amended the constitution in 2023 to ensure cash remains an option for payments. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde later criticized the amendment. Lagarde wrote, “[The] ECB respectfully suggests that the provision of Article 39a(1) of the Constitution is outside of the competence of a Member State whose currency is the euro.” She further wrote that the amendments “should either be deleted or, alternatively, amended to merely refer to the relevant provisions of Union law.”

In October 2023, the Národná banka Slovenska republished an update on the digital euro from the European Central Bank. The update explained that the “Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) decided today to move to the next phase of the digital euro project: the preparation phase.”

The digital euro also came up in the Národná banka Slovenska’s November 2023 Financial Stability Report. The report warned that a CBDC in the form of a digital euro could put pressure on commercial banks’ liquidity profiles, impact banking profitability, create higher interest-rate sensitivity, and lead to greater reliance on alternative funding.

The Národná banka Slovenska published a survey in October 2024 that found 58 percent of Slovak respondents said they would not use a digital euro.

In November 2024, Národná banka Slovenska published a paper analyzing whether a CBDC would pose a threat to the banking system. The paper found that the Slovak banking system is at a higher risk of being disrupted by the digital euro relative to other banking systems in the European Union. Furthermore, the paper found that limiting how much CBDC people can have is not a panacea for stopping the impact of bank runs. The central bank also republished a paper by European Central Bank board member Piero Cipollone titled “The Digital Euro: What’s In It For You?”

Human Rights and Civil Liberties Concerns

Slovakia earned a 90 out of 100 in Freedom House’s 2023 Freedom in the World report. Even then, however, it’s important to recognize that the creation of a CBDC could open the door to risks to financial privacy and financial freedom. Granted, it must also be said that the ability of the government to abuse a CBDC directly is debatable because the CBDC that would be used in Slovakia would be provided by the European Central Bank—representing the European Union.

For additional information on concerns regarding violations of human rights and civil liberties, see the following reports by Amnesty International, Financial Tyranny Index, Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, Privacy International, and the U.S. Department of State. For additional information on concerns regarding the risks of CBDCs, see the following webpage and report by the Cato Institute: The Risks of CBDCs and Central Bank Digital Currency: Assessing the Risks and Dispelling the Myths.

For additional information regarding metrics, the methodology page explains each of the data points and provides their respective sources.