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McKinsey warned Wirecard more than a year before the payment group's collapse that it should take "immediate action" to deal with an absence of controls at its largest business. The consultancy told the company in June 2019 that "risks related to business partnerships or third parties" were one of its main vulnerabilities. In August 2019, McKinsey gave a full presentation to the two boards at an off-site meeting in Austria, where it warned that "non-existent" controls over the third-party business had created a "significant risk".

Worldwide searches for bitcoin have reached mid-2020 levels as of April 22, 2022, with readings of 17 for the week of April 17-April 23 versus May 2021's all-time high reading of 76. This does not mean the total number of searches for "bitcoin"  is decreasing, but that its popularity is decreasing compared to other searches. Data suggests most searches for bitcoin originate from Nigeria, followed by El Salvador and Austria.

According to a BearingPoint survey across seven European countries, cash is the most used payment method overall with contactless debit cards second. Cash use is significantly higher in Austria (79%) and Germany (71%), but respondents from Switzerland (63%), Ireland (61%), the Netherlands (57%), and France (55%) also show a relatively high level of cash use. Finland has a significantly lower frequency of cash usage at 43%.

"Most Europeans now juggle different cards, apps and devices depending on each payment situation, finding that the convenience of digital payments doesn't always live up to the promise. In the euro area, we are stuck in a fragmented system, where digital payment solutions don't cover all our needs. While you might easily use a card to pay contactless for a meal or a taxi ride in cities like Madrid or Paris, rural areas in Germany or Austria often only accept cash or local debit cards. Similarly, some mobile apps work well for sending money to family or friends but aren't accepted for online purchases or by local businesses. In a nutshell, we still don't have a digital payment solution that works effectively everywhere in the euro area in all payment situations." (ECB Executive Board Member Piero Cipollone)

BearingPoint published the latest edition of its European Payment Study, based on an online survey of 10,222 people aged 18 and over in nine countries. It shows that in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, cash remains the most frequently used payment method, accounting for 69%, 73% and 57% of transactions, respectively. In contrast, the Nordic countries, particularly Sweden with 28% and Denmark with 35%, show significantly lower cash usage. Overall, the survey reveals that the frequency of cash usage has declined in almost all surveyed countries compared to the previous year. The digital euro has achieved relatively high awareness, with only one-third of respondents having never heard of it. Online shopping is the preferred use case for the digital euro, with an average of 37% across countries. Being free of charge (43%) and accepted everywhere (37%) are the leading objective requirements.

The Eurosystem successfully completed its first experiment in settling wholesale transactions tokenized on a distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform in central bank money. Oesterreichische Nationalbank tokenized and simulated delivery-versus-payment settlement of government bonds in a secondary market transaction.

The Oesterreichische Nationalbank (ONB) published a paper that studies the impact the introduction of the digital euro might on Austrian banks from a financial stability perspective, based on the premise that the digital euro will not bear interest and will be subject to a holding limit. With respect to bank liquidity risk and profitability, it finds substantial effects only for extreme scenarios and high holding limits. Lower holding limits effectively contain adverse outcomes both with respect to interest income losses and liquidity risk. Overall, we conclude that the introduction of a digital euro would not pose a threat to the stability of the Austrian banking system provided the digital euro is subject to a carefully designed holding limit and remuneration model. From a purely financial stability perspective, low holding limits would be preferable to higher ones.