Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has reorganised to combine its cash department and its payment department.

A recent paper, ‘COVID Cash*’, by Kenneth Rogoff and Jessica Scazzero considers the implications for advanced economies in the long-term trend of value being stored in cash, a trend accelerated by, and highly visible due to, the pandemic. They make two arguments.

The European Central Bank (ECB) study, 'Foreign Demand for Euro Banknotes', set out to identify the demand drivers for euro banknotes and to estimate the share of euro banknotes in circulation outside of the euro area.

Doris Schneeberger, Head of the Currency Management Division at the European Central Bank (ECB), spoke at December’s RBR conference giving the Eurosystem perspective on trends and developments in the use of cash.

Bantas is a Turkish based cash in transit (CIT) joint venture between three Turkish commercial banks. With about 1,600 staff, it looks after 48 cash centres, servicing 9,000 ATMs, 2,700 bank branches and 3,300 shops using 425 armoured trucks.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published the results of a major study into the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area (SPACE) and compared it with a similar 2016 study (the SUCH study on the payment attitudes of consumers in the euro area). It also published results of another large scale interim 2020 survey, the impact of the pandemic on cash trends (IMPACT) survey.

Norges Bank Deputy Governor Ida Wolden Bache spoke recently about the Bank’s thinking on CBDCs, or DSPs as they are known in Norway. Even with cash steady since the Spring at 4% of transactions, surely the lowest figure in the world, Norges Bank is in no hurry to issue a DSP. It continues though, to think and prepare.

In January the Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technology team from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the US issued a comprehensive toolkit to help central banks develop their Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) policy by giving them a step by step process to follow, supported by detailed worksheets.

In a conference speech this month, Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), laid out the thinking and plans of the ECB and European Commission (EC) for payments in the years ahead. A changing payments landscape requires action and work is in hand to maintain a payment system that is resilient, efficient, inclusive and European, he said.