Hot on the heels of the Global Currency Forum come three more conferences.

This article was first published in February’s edition of Coin & Mint News™. The issue of estimated coin life has been a subject of speculation for a long time. There are limited data and systematic studies about the life of coins. Publicly available information from world mints suggests that coins could remain in circulation for at least 25 or 30 years. There are other sources suggesting that coins could last in circulation much longer and their lifetime could even exceed 50 years.

As geopolitical storms reshape global finance, cash is evolving into a strategic tool for sovereignty, resilience, and trust in an era of fragmentation and digital vulnerability.

OMFIF, an independent think tank for central banking, economic policy and public investment, has argued that cash plays a systemic role that no digital payment instrument, no matter how sophisticated, can replicate.

Reuters reports the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is considering new controls for high-value transactions due to a rise in digital frauds.

Franklin Noll of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has looked at where stablecoins are held and how they are used in the financial ecosystem in a Payments System Research Briefing.

Norges Bank has now published four reports that led it to conclude in December 2025 that introducing a CBDC was currently not warranted.

The 2025 Australian Consumer Payments Survey shows that cash use has stabilised in recent years.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) runs a number of annual surveys to understand payment trends over time and what is happening now. The latest is the 2025 survey of payment methods of 2,000 private individuals, consisting of a questionnaire and the keeping of a payment diary for a seven day period.

A recent article in the Jamaica Observer focuses on Jamaica’s central bank digital currency (CBDC), known as Jam-Dex . Unusually not only does the article argue for increased usage of the CBDC, but it gives detailed suggestions for how to do this.

Franklin Noll of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has looked at where stablecoins are held and how they are used in the financial ecosystem in a Payments System Research Briefing.

John Kiff, who writes as Kiffmeister, has written a series of papers considering the future of retail Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC). He started by analysing the CBDCTracker.org database to see what has been happening to CBDC over time. His first findings were that projects are not leading to launches. Some projects have been put on the backburner and some cancelled, never getting out of the research or proof-of-concept phases. Many central banks have refocused to wholesale CBDC-backed tokenised deposits.

The European Payment Initiative and the Digital Euro aim to gain European payment independence from the US payment giants.

This year’s High Security Printing (HSP) conference for the Europe, Middle East and African region was the first ever in its 22 year history to be held in the latter region, and the biggest ever – with 341 delegates, 146 organisations and 49 countries attending.

On its 50th anniversary, the foreign exchange company Travelex has published its first Travel Money Insights Report. The good news is the headline that 69% of travellers still choose cash.

On 12 March the first Global Cash Day reached LinkedIn, and perhaps beyond, initiated by the Cash Alliance and picked up by many players in the cash ‘industry’. This article steps back to consider how we develop it to reach further to a much wider audience.

Guillaume Lepecq, Chair of Cash Essentials, and Matt Sykes, from the CPT Group, have written a paper about the business model of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs). Their conclusion? Circumstances have changed, and ATM business models need rethinking.

The US Senate has voted 89 to 10 to ban the Federal Reserve from issuing CBDCs until after 2030 as part of a bipartisan housing bill. The bill now moves to the House of Representatives.

Jeremy Light has published a useful summary of UK payments fraud. While every country will be different, it is interesting to see what criminals are doing and the payment risk involved.

73.4% of voters endorsed a government proposal to guarantee the right to use cash, require the Swiss National Bank to maintain adequate supplies of notes and coins, and stipulate a nationwide vote to replace the Swiss franc with another currency.