Deutsche Bank research analyst Marion Laboure has written a paper, ‘Future Payments: Towards the End of Cash?’ following on from her 2020 piece on the same subject.

Just as open banking is allowing OneBanx to offer shared bank branches, a UK start-up is using it to offer merchants and alternative to Visa and Mastercard’s debit card payments. Atoa Payments has raised $2.2 million in a pre-seed funding round.

Just as the Federal Reserve is introducing new guidelines on card routing to increase competition, a campaign has started in the UK to get card fees reduced.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has carried out a survey of cash use by businesses in the euro area. The survey was based on over 10,000 interviews and the analysis concentrated on businesses with the most interaction with consumers.

Morning Consult has written an article challenging whether banks should redefine the terms ‘unbanked’ and ‘underbanked’. The article argues that banks should focus on customers’ specific needs if they want to draw more people into financial services.

The US Department of the Treasury has issued a report, ‘The Future of Money and Payments’. The report was requested by the President in the context of fast-moving changes to the US system of money and payments.

In Australia, Armaguard Group has reached agreement to merge Prosegur Australia into their business. The merger will include cash in transit, technical services and ATM networks within Australia.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued a report on India’s payment system. Part of that report benchmarks India against 21 countries.

Mobile money systems, of which M-Pesa is the best known, are evolving to the detriment of the network of agents who handle their transactions, according to a recent article in The Economist magazine.

There is much talk of smart contracts in the National Bank of Denmark paper on payments. Whether in the context of CBDCs or other payments, they are frequently put forward as an attractive ‘prize’ worth pursuing.