While data about digital payments is usually good, measuring cash is problematic. Understanding cash usage is important for regulatory authorities. IMF Working Paper WP/23/62 explores the measurement of cash based on ATM cash withdrawals value as an alternative to the traditional cash in circulation as a proportion of GDP method.

At the end of 2011, the Netherlands had 2,654 bank branches. At the end of 2021 this had fallen to 726, and not all of those provided over the counter cash services. At the same time, more than 4% of retailers now inform customers that they don’t accept cash.

There will be very few organisations that can eliminate carbon emissions completely, and most organisations are going to take a number of years to get anywhere close.

Two MBA students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wanted to give a percentage of their income in cash to impoverished people. They had studied the impact of government schemes in Mexico and Brazil and the results led them to want to take the same approach.

If you were not in Edinburgh for the Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum™ you missed something special, the first ever event dedicated to sustainability for this industry.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub have been working on Project Aurum.

Danmarks Nationalbank has issued a paper ‘Corporate CO2 communication is Not Associated with Fewer Emissions’. In the paper, annual reports of 141 large European companies were analysed to compare their communications about CO2 equivalent emissions with past, present and future developments in emissions.

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 Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has used its October 2020 Methods of Payment Survey (MPS) to explore the role of financial literacy as a driver of cash usage.

The Economist magazine issued a special report on Environment, Society and Governance (ESG) in its 23 July 2022 edition. It describes ESG as having had a ‘negligible impact on carbon emissions’.