A few days after celebrating its 90th anniversary, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shakti Kant Das has announced several new payment initiatives.

For Europe, the key piece of environmental legislation is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). The European Commission estimates 50,000 companies around the world will be affected, with the first companies having to apply the new rules from as early as 2025, for financial years beginning on or after 1 January 2024.

The Bank of Canada (BOC) carries out regular Methods of Payment (MOP) surveys to measure payment method adoption, use at the point of sale (POS) and perceptions about payment methods. This helps the BOC with its management of banknotes and understanding of digital currencies and may help with its work on a possible Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

This is an abridged version of an NCR Atleos article written about ATM network options that financial institutions (FIs) have if they don’t have the reach of the largest institutions. It explores the pros and cons of either joining a shared network or signing up with an independent ATM network.

BANTAS is a joint subsidiary of three commercial banks, and the leading cash services provider in Turkey. It has about 1,800 employees, 46 cash centres with 490 armoured vehicles across the country. It is the sole provider in Northern Cyprus.

The end of the ‘cash era’, announced by The Economist 15 years ago, has not arrived. On the contrary, in a contactless but crisis-ridden world, cash is leaving wallets and taking refuge in mattresses. This article from Marc Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Monnaie de Paris, was first published by Cash Essentials.

It appears that Vermont is the latest US state to consider introducing legislation to force cash acceptance.

Franklin Noll of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has written a payment systems research briefing note on what can be learnt from the experience of retail CBDCs (rCBDC) in the Caribbean.

Defining the right privacy level for a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a critical decision when designing a CBDC. The Bank of Canada has published a Staff Working Paper that focuses on the needs of businesses and considers the options.

The rise of cashless payments has raised the concern that some consumers will be induced to spend beyond their means. As monthly income is spent over the course of a month, if consumers are aware of their reducing balance, they are likely to constrain their spending. The Swiss National Bank has published a paper that explores differences in how freely people spend between people who pay in cash and digitally and how their awareness of their balances affects their cash management.

The authors of a new European Central Bank (ECB) working paper have used data from the ECB’s Consumer Expectations Surveys (CES) to study cashless payments in everyday situations and the use of mobile banking apps in the euro area.

Sweden’s Riksbank has issued its latest CBDC phase review. This fourth phase built on a previous phase that trialled offline token-based payments to explore an offline e-Krona based on account balances.

Digital-only financial inclusion (DoFI) can increase convenience for financially included people, and lead to cost savings for providers of financial services. On the back of this, today digital payments are promoted by governments and digital payment companies alike as a solution to financial inclusion for all. A recently published paper examines the dangers of DoFI.

Payment technology has had a bad time in the UK recently. Four major firms have had IT issues that hit contactless payments– two food outlets (McDonalds and Greggs), two supermarkets (Sainsbury’s and Tesco).

The European Central Bank has started to make the case for a digital euro. The central bank's Programme Director Digital Euro recently noted that a digital euro, while complementing cash, would strengthen Europe’s strategic sovereignty by reducing dependence on non-European payment providers and offer another form of trusted and secure transactions for people in Europe.

Innovation in contactless payment technology, the COVID-19 pandemic, increased e-commerce, and enhanced transparency, security, and convenience have transformed the retail payment markets in the last few years.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (KBBNS) will host a dedicated event to bring the international central bank community together around the future role cash will play in society.

This year, the International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) is concentrating on cash visibility and collaboration.

The first afternoon of the second Cash Sustainability Forum (CSF), which takes place in Frankfurt from 24-26 June this year, will be a workshop dedicated to the recycling and recirculation of cash. It will build on a white paper currently being researched and prepared, and for which input is still very welcome.

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.