Until now the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has concentrated on wholesale Central Bank Digital Currencies (wCBDC), which are used with financial institutions.

The Bank of England published in its quarterly bulleting an update on cash. The headlines were that cash has made a partial recovery.

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.

A recent article on the Raconteur website looked at what the payment industry is doing on decarbonisation. It is worth having a look at what others are doing, particularly since cash is sometimes looked at in the frame of payments generally.

Does paying with mobile digital payments increase consumers’ marginal propensity to consume? If there is to be an increase in the use of mobile payments this has implications for consumers, merchants and governments. A paper from Claremont Graduate University sets out to answer this.

The EU is introducing a new maximum limit of €10,000 on cash payments as part of a programme to stop money laundering. Individual countries are free to set their own lower limit.

An article by Tristan Dissaux - ‘The Social Role of Money in an Age of Digitalisation' - pulls together much of the debate and thinking around the payment tension created by digitisation. As we end 2022, it is a good time to reflect on this.

The National Bank of Ukraine has maintained the supply of cash and cash circulation to over 1,500 bank branches and more than 3,800 ATMs across the country since Russia invaded in February 2022. The Deputy Governor, Oleksii Shaban, has shared their experience.

The British Retail Consortium has just published its 2021 survey of its members who account for 36% of total UK sales from 25,000 shops. While card usage soared, so has the cost of card payments, prompting the BRC to demand emergency intervention by the government to prevent price gouging by the card companies.

The Swiss Innovation Hub of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has started project Tourbillon, which will explore how to improve cyber resiliency, scalability and privacy.

The settlement of a class action lawsuit against Visa and Mastercard in Canada has allowed retailers to pass on credit card fees to their customers.

Italy’s new government intends to scrap the requirement to accept electronic settlements for purchases below €30 and to raise it to €60, according to a draft of its 2023 budget recently approved by the cabinet.

One of the sessions at the Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum™ addressed today’s cash management challenges, and featured presentations by Loomis, FedCash® Services, G+D and Koenig and Bauer Banknote Solutions.

Tanja Heßdörfer was interviewed at the CBDC conference in August for this article. Tanja is Head of Sales and Business Development, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)s, at Giesecke+Devrient (G+D).

The Mint Directors’ Working Group (MDWG) spoke at the Coin Conference about new research commissioned into the environmental impact of cash compared with digital payments.

A newly issued Cash Innovation whitepaper by Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions takes a deeper look at why change and innovation are actually required in the way cash is organised and managed in society, while defining the problems that need to be fixed and how to fix them.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Digital Financial Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC) have issued a white paper on CBDCs.

Given how much cash is issued but held as a store of value, a paper entitled ‘Cash Money as a Saving Mode’ from Tampere University in Finland is useful and interesting.

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.

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.

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.

The Dutch Payments Association has issued a report, ‘Study into the Costs and Revenues of Payment Services for Financial Institutions 2021’.

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.

In 2019, 75% of US households had at least one general purpose credit card. Revolving consumer credit at the end of 2021 was over $1 trillion.

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

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.

Denaria Platform is a Spanish association established to support payment choice through the maintenance of cash. It is working to ensure society is aware just how important cash is both economically and for financial and social inclusion.

The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) conference took place at the very end of August in Frankfurt, the first CBDC conference in person, reflecting just how new CBDCs are.

Intelligent cash protection and custom control solutions provider Spinnaker International has rebranded to Secure Innovation.

In late April, Germany’s federal administrative court pronounced its judgment in the legal challenge against the Hessischer Rundfunk, a German public broadcaster, for its refusal to accept payments for an obligatory fee in euro cash.

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.

Working paper 2713 from the ECB suggests policy interest in retail CBDCs has been driven by the decline in cash use and the rapid increase in digital payment types and use, challenging the status quo.

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.

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.

Fijians stand to benefit from important regulatory changes that will make everyday bank transactions easier, helping boost financial inclusion while supporting financial stability and economic activity, says the Reserve Bank of Fiji.

Despite headline currency in circulation at near record levels, substantially less cash is being used in Australia.

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.

Allied Universal is a security and facility services company. It has just published its 2021 Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) report, its first ever. This lays out its strategy, targets and progress across all ESG areas.

CashTech gathers companies which leverage software and communications technology to provide improved cash services as well as to enhance the efficiency of the cash cycle.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has published an article discussing access to cash in the euro area. It examines the challenges of distance, capacity and public perception and different approaches to modelling them.

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 World Bank’s Financial Inclusion Global Initiative (FIGI) has issued a paper investigating Incentives for Electronic Payment Acceptance (EPA). The report was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Diebold Nixdorf recently presented a webinar on the benefits and logic of cash automation and how to do cash recycling well.

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’.

Schroders, a global asset management and wealth manager, has published a perspective piece, ‘Stablecoins: what they mean for the future of money’.

Auriga has won the ATMIA’s cost of cash contest for the best white paper on how to improve cash management and logistics.

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.

Updates on upcoming conferences including: CBDC Conference, Future of Cash Conference, The Silk Road Conference on Cash and Payments, The Coin Conference, and the Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum.

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

Taiwan has said that it has completed trials of its prototype retail CBDC in technical simulations. This was concluded three months early. Electronic payments have risen from 40% in 2017 to 60% in the first quarter of 2022.

The Bank of Canada has issued a Staff Discussion Paper that focuses on the retail side of the cash distribution system examining changes in cash accessibility as the result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professors Gerhard Rösl and Franz Seitz have written a paper in which they compare the handling of the 1929 depression, the 2008/9 recession, India’s demonetisation exercise and Greece’s experience in their sovereign debt crisis and financial challenges starting 2009 until today.

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.

The Bank of England has issued its climate related financial disclosure document for 2022, which builds on the significant progress made in 2021.

Brazil is doing something different around payments. It is driving increasing levels of financial inclusion using digital payments, something much talked about but seldom delivered.

At the Intergraf conference the Banque de France presented on the access to cash situation in France and how it has changed since 2018. The good news is that access to cash remains good throughout France. However, there are indications of change.

The Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum™ takes place in Edinburgh 14-16 November. While COP 27 is an alternative option given that it is taking place in Egypt at the same time, the Sustainability Forum will be more useful for those working at the sharp end of the cash and payments industry.

The Bank of Canada (BOC) has issued a paper investigating the relationship of Bitcoin owners with cash. The paper is written in the context of understanding whether private digital currencies will make serious inroads into the use of cash, particularly for transactions.

A website, Scitechdaily, has written about what they refer to as the ‘cashless’ effect, the increased willingness to buy things when physical cash does not change hands.

At the end of May a new law in Spain made it mandatory for retailers to accept cash, with refusal to accept cash becoming an offence. Under certain conditions it can be regarded as a severe, rather than a minor, offence.

The financial industry is paying increasing attention to published Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data, driven by regulatory requirements and investor demand.

Last year, the International Banknote Designers Association (IBDA) held a virtual conference. One speaker, Dr Franklin Noll, presented his thoughts on how we’ll be paying in ten years time.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority is concerned that some banks and building societies are closing branches without considering carefully enough the impact on their local communities. It is looking at updating guidance to rectify this.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Hong Kong Innovation Hub will start Project Selah in the third quarter of 2022. The project sees the Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Israel working together, with the BIS, to test a two-tier system.

The CBDC conference has now posted its 2022 agenda online. More information about the conference can be found at www.cbdc-conference.com.

The Asia Cash Cycle Seminar (ICCOS) takes place 5-7 September 2022, returning to its live and in person format after a three-year hiatus.

The global independent think tank CashEssentials has announced the launch of the CashTech Innovation Awards, to recognise innovations that will facilitate access to and acceptance of cash.

Four speakers focused on the future of cash at the recent Mint Directors Conference online forum. Two academics used their research to explain how, and why people pay as they do and then two speakers questioned future payments and how they might evolve.

The Central Bank of Nigeria is planning to introduce Bank Neutral Cash Hubs. It has issued a consultation paper en route to issuing final guidelines, and the draft proposals lay out the CBN’s vision and intentions.

The announcement by the UK government that it will legislate in the Financial Services and Markets bill to protect cash by ensuring continued access to withdrawal and deposit facilities across the UK has led to a series of pieces in the UK’s media about cash.

There is a belief that banking can become purely digital. During the pandemic cash usage fell and we couldn’t visit bank branches. Banks were quick to close ATMs and branches, justifying this as customer choice.

At a BIS event, the Central Bank of Chile announced that it is delaying its planned digital roll out to undertake further work on the benefits and risks.

A recent article by RBC demonstrated that in Canada the use of cash as a proportion of GDP decreased from 4.8% in 1961 to 2.9% in 1981. From then until about 2008/9 it held steady at about the 3% level. Since then it has risen steadily reaching 4.4% in 2021.

Deutsche Bank is to require from July any of its vendors with a contract over €500,000 a year to undertake a vendor sustainability rating assessment with EcoVadis, or another eligible rating agency.

Cryptocurrencies are in a strange place. There were 18,465 cryptocurrencies as of March 2022, although perhaps only 10,363 are active. There are over 300 million users worldwide and more than 18,000 businesses now accept some form of crypto as payment.

Brett Scott’s new book has just been published. It reads easily, flowing along at a great pace. The book lays out with wonderful clarity what money is, how every type of ‘money’ has become what it is from cash to CBDCs, with every variant in between, and how the financial system works and interconnects.

Forecasting cash in circulation (CIC) is a key activity of central banks as it is an important variable in monetary policymaking, affecting overall liquidity in the economy and guiding their currency issuance operations.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey carried out its first ever Methods of Payment Survey in September/October 2020.

A Cash and Payments Sustainability Forum™ will be held in Edinburgh in the UK on 15-16 November. More information about the event can be found at cashandpaymentsustainabilityforum.com.

The Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco has published its diary of consumer payment choice based on its 2021 research.

The second CBDC Conference will take place 29-31 August 2022 in Frankfurt. The organiser is now publishing new speakers regularly on the conference website, www.cbdc-conference.com.

At the High Security Printing Latin America™ conference in March, Linda Rodríguez Casarrubias, Manager of Process Re-engineering and Development, presented the work being done by the Banco de México on sustainability.

Carbon offsetting is a much talked about option but poorly understood. It may feel like ‘cheating’ or not delivering genuine benefits to reduce carbon emissions. This article looks at the why and how of carbon offsetting to answer these questions.

The Electronic Currency and Secure Hardware Act (ECASH) has been introduced in the US Congress by Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat and chair of the House Task Force on Financial Technology. The bill directs the US Treasury Department to conduct a pilot program for a version of digital dollars that work just like cash in that they would be stored on hardware, not in bank accounts.

In early June Currency Research will host its first in person Cash Cycle Seminar since COVID forced a postponement of the planned March 2020 event in Amsterdam. Taking place in Istanbul, the conference combines the previously separated Europe and MEA ICCOS events, with a focused agenda examining developments in the cash distribution and circulation sector.

Socash, the Singapore-based technology company with an app that connects consumers and merchants so that consumers can deposit, withdraw and make payments with cash at the point of sale in shops, has signed a definitive agreement to be bought by Nium.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association, which represents a range of US retailers, has written to the US Treasury Department asking for help to get the public to spend their accumulated coins. The retailers are facing a shortage of coins similar to early in the pandemic.

The Dutch National Bank (DNB) has published its Payment Strategy 2022-2025. The strategy has three priorities; ensuring access to payments, maintaining a robust and reliable payment structure, and strengthening European and global payments, leveraging the Dutch experience.

The National Bank of Denmark has issued an analysis paper looking at the use of cash in society. Denmark has one of the lowest levels of cash usage in Europe with only Norway and Sweden with lower levels. While the pandemic has reduced cash usage, there are clear signs that Danes still value cash.

Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, and the UK have enacted legislation requiring that their countries have net zero carbon emissions by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement. Net zero is achieved when the amount of carbon dioxide we add to the environment is no more than the amount taken away.

The Bank of Canada runs two ‘Cash Alternative Surveys’ in April and August each year of a representative sample of 2,500–3,500 Canadians. It combines this with data from its Bank Note Distribution System to monitor the use of cash.

In preparation for a meeting of emerging market economy Deputy Governors organised by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the BIS surveyed 26 central banks and received papers relating to their CBDC work from 24 of them.

The Digital Currency Conference (DCC) took place in person immediately after the Banknote & Currency Conference in February. The agenda raced through a wide range of topics, including quantum computing, achieving privacy with CBDCs, the Digital Dollar Project, and digital currencies.

The Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) is working on a possible future Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) and is looking to have its Real Digital ready for 2024.

At the Banknote & Currency Conference last month, Swiss substrate manufacturer Landqart revealed useful new research it has been carrying out on how to dispose of banknotes at the end of their life in an environmentally sound way.

In many countries the COVID-19 pandemic has seen cash in circulation reach record levels, yet, with diminished economic activity and a push towards ‘contactless’ payments, transactional cash use has continued to decline.

In 2020 consumers made 15.5 billion debit card payments in the UK. Mastercard has just said that over half of the world’s in person payments are now made using contactless technology.

The Deputy Governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has said it is on track to launch its CBDC in the first quarter of 2022, having completed the pilot in December 2021. At the moment, it is working to increase the number of commercial banks capable and ready to open accounts for CBDC users.

In Denmark cash may only be used in 12% of transactions, but one in four person-to-person transactions are made in cash and one in three Danes hold cash at home as a reserve. How much people hold has also increased.

Money has a public and a private role touch on financial obligations, authority and credit. But what happens when bank accounts, credit and debit cards and even cash are disrupted by war?

A new IMF paper concludes that the main influence on the demand for cash, and why demand is falling, seems to lie in the demand preferences of changing population structures. If CBDCs are issued, the demand for cash may continue to fall, but the demand for card usage may fall by even more.

In 2020 Apple bought Mobeewave, a start-up working to enable contactless payments using smart phones. Bloomberg has reported that Apple will allow small businesses to use iPhones to accept payments ‘in the coming months’.

A recent post highlighted how misleading the constant stream of headlines about a cashless society is. Going cashless makes for wonderfully shocking, attention-grabbing headlines.

China has been working hard to get its e-CNY ready in the run up to the Beijing winter Olympics with the aim of using the games to test its CBDC. The e-CNY could be used by visitors to China as well as the local population.

Finance.ua, a Ukrainian financial media organisation, posted cash usage rates for Europe in 2019 based on Statista data and then compared it with a smaller selection of countries in 2020 and then 2021.

A new agreement has been signed between the UK’s Post Office and 30 banks and building societies to allow customers to continue to access basic banking services in post offices.

Cash Essentials recently ran the first in a series of ‘Cash Talks’ looking at access to cash with reports from AGE Platform Europe, the European Retail Payment Board (ERPB), the Dutch National Bank (DNB) and LINK.

For the first time in two centuries, since the establishment of central banks began, the definition of money is being reviewed. In that context Paul Wilson’s book – ‘Shades of Sovereignty: Money and the Making of the State’ – is a useful read.

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) conducted a survey of 2,000 companies in the summer of 2021, representative of every industrial sector and region of Switzerland.

A recent post highlighted how misleading the constant stream of headlines about a cashless society is. Going cashless makes for wonderfully shocking, attention-grabbing headlines.

The agenda of the Optical and Digital Document Security (ODDS) conference reflects increasing interest in getting cash to interact with smartphones and other devices. Four papers consider new approaches in this area.

The Beijing Winter Olympics has seen a third payment option be used at an Olympic Games for the first time since 1986 (when Visa got became the exclusive payment service provider alongside cash).

In countries where less cash is already underway, there is an underlying assumption that it is only a matter of time before cash will reach a tipping point that makes digital payments a requirement. The unstated assumption is that cash will end, and that digital is the future. There is an urgency, therefore, to make digital payments work.

A recent webinar organised by Enryo, an independent consultancy, invited four experts to consider digital inclusion. Speakers addressed how to overcome the very real problem of proving identity and what needs to be done to accelerate digital inclusion.

The CBDC Conference will take place in Frankfurt 29-31 August 2022. Registration is open and there is a super saver 25% discount rate for those who register by 30 April – www.cbdc-conference.com.

In 2020 Apple bought Mobeewave, a start-up working to enable contactless payments using smart phones. Bloomberg has reported that Apple will allow small businesses to use iPhones to accept payments ‘in the coming months’.

While cash transactions in Japan have been declining for some time, albeit from a high base, the reduction in opportunities to pay in cash and the increased use of ‘stay at home consumption’ during the pandemic has accelerated this decline. At the same time the ratio of banknotes to GDP has risen very significantly.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) needs explanation if it is to be more than a buzz word. A recent article in the Asian Cash Management Association (ACMA) journal by Joep Van den Brink from PlanFocus Software threw some light on it in the context of cash management.

The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System has published a paper on the growth potential and impact on banking of stablecoins. The paper explores what stablecoins are, their risks and their possible uses, including a look at the future.

The UK’s second parliamentary chamber, the House of Lords, has reviewed the work of the Bank of England and Her Majesty’s Treasury Taskforce that is working on the potential for introducing a retail Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in the UK.

The Bank of Canada wanted to understand the impact on cash withdrawals if people had to pay more to access cash. Staff working paper 202128 considers this question.

The Banque de France, the Swiss National Bank and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub have completed a cross-border wholesale CBDC experiment. Known as Project Jura, the experiment used tokenised assets on a distributed ledger (DLT) platform to settle cross-border transactions.

Amazon has decided to continue to accept Visa credit cards in the UK, reversing its decision to stop on 19 January. The reason for the change of heart is not clear but it is assumed that Amazon will have negotiated price concessions from Visa.

Fear of COVID-19 transmission by banknotes remains in Taiwan despite the worldwide research that demonstrates the risks are extremely small, no more than touching any other object in a public space.

As the number of ATMs and use declines, authorities face challenges relating to competition policy and appropriate regulations. The Bank of Finland is no exception and has written about their experience and the extensive academic work done on this topic.

Seigniorage income has long been a central bank source of finance which, if allowed to be retained, means central banks do not require direct funding from the government of the day in their country.

The Banknote & Currency Conference will take place, in person, on 21-24 February in Washington DC. Four weeks prior to the event, overall attendance matches the same stage prior to the 2019 Currency Conference, with particularly strong numbers of central banks and printworks.

Four recent stories about digital payment crime highlight the changing profile of financial crime from payment cards to cryptocurrencies.

A CoinDesk columnist, J P Koning, has bravely made five predictions about the future of money.

The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructure carried out a survey of central banks in Latin America and the Caribbean asking about their work on CBDCs on behalf of the Bank for International Settlements.

Peterson Ozili has written a paper looking at the possible benefits of bringing the unbanked into the formal financial sector. In addition to listing the arguments for and against, he also includes a literature search outlining their key conclusions.

This paper looks at the implications of currency substituting that go beyond the functions of central banks, to consider the key differences in monetary policy and LLR, and to assess the implications and risks of currency substitution and how they vary between countries.

With 14% of central banks at the pilot stage of exploring a possible future Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), this paper seeks to address three related questions; What would be the demand for a CBDC?, How would different design attributes affect demand?, and To what extent would a CBDC impact the demand for cash and deposits?

An offline ability to use CBDCs could make them more inclusive for those who find the digital world hard to access. This paper considers whether an expiry date on CBDCs would add to the usefulness of CBDCs.

The Bank of Canada has considered what the impact of introducing a cash-like, deposit-like or universal CBDC would be on consumption, banking and welfare.