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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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?