TALER · Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserves

TALER will roll out a new electronic payment system that benefits European citizens, merchants, and banks.GNU Taler is a privacy-preserving digital payment system developed bythe GNU community and Taler Systems SA with additional funding fromvarious NGI calls (NGI0 PET, NGI0 Entrust, NGI POINTER, NGI TRUST).GNU Taler offers privacy for the buyer while enforcingtransparency on sellers. As a result, citizens do not suffer fromsurveillance when paying with GNU Taler, and States canensure that businesses can be held accountable for theirincome and pay their taxes.The first vertical addressed by TALER is the financial industry.TALER will bring GNU Taler to TRL 9 by making GNU TALER available as paymentsystem via retail banks (via GLS and MAGNET Bank).TALER counts three verticals for its go-to-market strategy. The first is thepublishing sector: independent book publishers and journalistswill integrate the sector with GNU Taler as a viable payment system. The e-health sector will implement GNU Taler as payment option for e-Health providers to guaranteeprivacy of the payer. Finally, the FLOSS ICT supply chain vertical will integrate GNU Taler in the FLOSS development ecosystem for donations and pledges.We expect TALER to have several long lasting impacts:By providing micro payments at very low overhead GNU Taler permitsInternet business models to shift away fromadvertising revenue or subscription models, especially for onlinepublishers, The no-risk transactions will lower transaction fees and open online paymentsfor the underbanked population and citizens marginalized from digitalisation.Finally,easy to use, efficient and privacy-respecting commercial payments willlikely impact the debate on central bank digital currencies (CBDCs)such as the Digital Euro, as central banks globally struggle topresent a compelling use-case for their retail CBDC projects.