In this new periodic series, we will cover in brief the news and information in various countries’ central bank annual reports as they relate to cash and payments, starting off with Ireland, Rwanda and Bhutan.

The ability of private citizens to execute electronic transactions using a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), central bank money, introduces new monetary stability challenges. A paper by Harald Uhlig from the University of Chicago considers this. The paper is highly theoretical but raises the sort of questions central banks have to get right in their planning for a CBDC.

The role of Currency Issue Director is great preparation for high office in a central bank. Ask Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, or Michelle Bullock, soon to be Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, both of whom have managed currency in their banks. What makes it such good preparation?

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, ‘big data’ and ChatGPT have now reached the public consciousness in a big way, hence headlines such as ‘Central Bank of Ireland blocks ChatGPT for staff as financial services firms grapple with AI’ and ‘China’s Central Bank Warns Against ChatGPT ‘Data Leaks’.

The European Money and Finance Forum has recently published a useful paper on big data and machine learning in central banks.

Sir Jon Cunliffe, Deputy Director Financial Stability at the Bank of England, has spoken about innovation in payments and money, focusing on the impact and opportunities offered by tokenisation, including the future of cash.

Danmarks Nationalbank held a conference on 9 March in Copenhagen that looked at crypto assets and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), and then Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

The Bank of England published in its quarterly bulleting an update on cash. The headlines were that cash has made a partial recovery.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published an article discussing access to cash in the euro area. It examines the challenges of distance, capacity and public perception and different approaches to modelling them.

The Bank of England has issued its climate related financial disclosure document for 2022, which builds on the significant progress made in 2021.