Factors shaping perceptions of the Digital Euro: Insights into how potential adoption is evaluated among Spanish business undergraduates

This study examines how digitally literate young adults interpret and evaluate the potential adoption of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), focusing on the Digital Euro (DE) within a strategic sample of Spanish business undergraduates. Adopting an exploratory qualitative design, the analysis draws on 87 open-ended responses collected in a university setting and thematically coded using ATLAS.ti. The findings show that the evaluation of DE adoption is not driven by isolated factors but by interpretative processes through which participants assess and negotiate trade-offs between usefulness, privacy, trust, and broader socio-economic implications. Privacy concerns, particularly related to surveillance and data control, emerge as a central barrier, with gendered nuances in risk perception. Age-related differences suggest that younger respondents emphasise pragmatic usability and benchmarking against existing digital payment systems, while slightly older participants focus on institutional oversight and systemic implications. Contrary to dominant CBDC narratives, financial inclusion does not appear to be a primary concern among this digitally prepared subgroup. Instead, employment-related considerations emerge spontaneously as a salient evaluative dimension, linking the DE to automation risks and innovation opportunities. Participants consistently benchmark and assess the DE against existing payment instruments, reinforcing the importance of perceived relative advantage. The study demonstrates that the evaluation of CBDC adoption is interpreted as a socio-institutional process rather than approached as a purely technological decision. While the single-institution sample limits generalizability, the findings provide theory-building insights into how informed young users interpret, assess, and construct evaluation of public digital money prior to implementation. • This study examines, through qualitative analysis, how digitally literate Spanish business undergraduates interpret and evaluate the potential adoption of the Digital Euro (DE). • Perceived usefulness, privacy concerns, and institutional trust are not independent drivers but are jointly interpreted within a broader evaluative framework that shapes how the DE is assessed. • Employment-related considerations emerge inductively as a salient evaluative dimension that links the DE to labour market expectations. • The DE is evaluated through continuous benchmarking against existing digital payment instruments. • The findings show that the evaluation of adoption is structured around negotiated trade-offs within a theory-building framework.