Reconnaissance International has unveiled DataVault™, the industry’s first dedicated, searchable online database for banknotes and coins – designed specifically for currency professionals who need fast, reliable, and up-to-date information.

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.

The Mint Directors’ Working Group (MDWG) spoke at the Coin Conference about new research commissioned into the environmental impact of cash compared with digital payments.

The Future of Cash conference had a special seminar dedicated to the cost of payments with presentations by the US Federal Reserve, SNB, Bundesbank, ECB and Tobias Truetsch from the University of St Gallen.

The World Bank’s Financial Inclusion Global Initiative (FIGI) has issued a paper investigating Incentives for Electronic Payment Acceptance (EPA). The report was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Kantar, who deals in consumer knowledge and insights, wrote an interesting piece last year about how they can help businesses make the consumer experience better with all the benefits for customer satisfaction that come from it.

Prof Dr Julia Pitter spoke at the recent Bundesbank cash symposium about the relationship between people and cash. According to Dr Pitter, a business psychologist at the Internationale Hochschule in Vienna, cash is more than a payment.

In September 2020 Reconnaissance Consulting Group was asked to consider what would happen to cash at a future moment where the world economy and society had re-opened living with COVID.

In 2019 National Westminster Bank (NatWest) commissioned independent academic research to look into the drivers of consumer payment behaviour, including consumer attitudes and intentions towards cash. The research was carried out by Professor Darren Duxbury, Dr Thanos Verousis and by David Marsh. This is a short summary of their work with the full research being published in due course.