A new CashEssentials paper addresses the questions ‘Is cash a public good?’ and ‘Is it a basic right?’ with the aim of clarifying the debate and advancing policy recommendations.

2024 has kicked off with a focus on cash, particularly a series of initiatives to safeguard access to cash.

Cash & Payment News™ (CPN) was first published in July 2018 as the successor to Payment News Quarterly. While Currency News™ focuses on the product that is ‘cash’, CPN has concentrated on the use of cash once issued.

Danmarks Nationalbank has carried out an analysis of the role of cash in a low cash usage society.

If a general can choose the battlefield, they can shape what happens next in the fight that follows. At the Future of Cash conference Brett Scott, the author, explained how the digital leaders have created and driven the story that digital is good and analogue is bad.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) roared into the public consciousness in 2023. Its widespread use and, more importantly, its potential have become visible to all, not just the small specialist user community that has been working on it for years. Clearly, AI is of great interest to central banks from the policy makers through the cash issue department.

As noted in the summary of the recent Emerging Market and Europe ATM and Cash Summit in Dublin, the focus was on understanding the future of ATMs in a changing cash environment. As such there was a strong ‘Future of Cash’ feel to the agenda alongside more technical ATM perspectives and topics.

Understanding the difference between banknotes used for transactions and those used for non-transactional purposes is a perennial issue for central banks.

The Banque de France issued a working paper in October 2022 that dealt with a number of fundamental questions about cash, questions that are particularly important in a less cash scenario. The paper addressed not just why people hold cash but why they hold different denominations. As the economy changes, what happens to cash holdings?

CBDCs started to become visible in published papers and discussions around 2016. No doubt there was much material before then but the acceleration of interest and activity has taken CBDCs from a niche to main stream media discussions.