As a worldwide partner to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Visa has a monopoly on all debit, credit and mobile payments. Spectators are venting their frustration. Paradoxically, the campaign demonstrates the importance of cash in terms of inclusion, protection of privacy and resilience.

August is one of those months where much of the world slows down, particularly in the northern hemisphere, creating an opportunity for a more reflective piece. As a result, this edition spends some time looking to the future.

The Bank of Canada has issued a staff discussion paper considering the role of retail public money at a time when new technology and new participants, some non-financial firms, are entering the process of money creation.

Revolut has recently received a UK banking licence. It has 9 million UK customers, 45 million globally. It has now announced that those customers can deposit cash into their accounts.

In June, the Mint Director’s Association held a webinar focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) as a tool and how it can be implemented to improve productivity. While coins were the focus of the talk, the theme applies to all currency and business in general. The webinar was hosted by Mr Aditya Berlia – an entrepreneur, educator, and AI advocate – and sponsored by Carveco.

Mastercard’s President of Global Enterprise Growth, Raghu Malhotra, gave his views on Digital Payment Regulations in Asia recently to Asia Business Outlook. His starting point was to argue for harmonised regulations in order to increase cross-border transactions and financial inclusion. If there can be a seamless operation across four countries versus a single country, the economics will differ and benefit the end consumer and merchants.

In the face of US and European Commission regulatory pressure, Apple is enabling iPhones to make contactless payments to third party providers. It will though, charge associated fees.

David Birch has written about the presentation made by Sarah Breeden, Deputy Governor at the Bank of England, at the Swiss National Bank’s event ‘Towards the future of the monetary system’. In it she described two waves of benefits from tokenisation. In the short term it will bring greater efficiency to the existing payment and settlement system. In the longer term she sees radical change to post-trade processes.

The Bank of England (BoE) has published its approach to innovation in money and payments, proposing a programme to test infrastructure that supports the settlement of central bank money against digital assets such as stablecoins, tokenised deposits and other innovations. The Bank has published previous papers on the regulation of stablecoins, innovations by deposit-takers and CBDCs.

Tobias Adrian, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department, spoke at the International Symposium on Central Bank Independence in Stockholm at the start of the year. His topic was maintaining central bank independence alongside the development of payments and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC).

Sweden’s Riksbank has started to look at the climate impact of adopting a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

The European Central Bank’s Product Environmental Footprint study found that 82% of the environmental impact of banknotes happened post-issue. In addition, all around the world cash usage is changing. Stakeholders are having to rethink how cash is organised.

The Bank for International Settlements has published a report stating that central banks should be using Artificial Intelligence to improve their analytical tools.

A study commissioned by the Polish Cashless Foundation has reported that nearly half of respondents to a survey withdrew cash from store registers. Threequarters were aware this was possible.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published a working paper examining the relationship between innovation, economic growth and informal activities. This is based on data from 101 economies from 2014-2019.

At the recent Cash Sustainability Forum, held in Frankfurt last month, Ian Woolford, Head of Money and Cash at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, gave a presentation on the country’s impending community cash services trial.

Both the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are working on wholesale CBDC infrastructure.

The Cash Sustainability Forum, which took place in Frankfurt last month, concluded with a panel discussion exploring who should lead and drive environmental change in the cash area.

The full programme for the CBDC Conference 2024, which takes place 10-12 September in Istanbul, has now been published. The event brings together central bankers, industry experts, thought leaders, academia and policymakers to explore the world of digital currency, including CBDC, tokenised deposits, and stablecoins.

Currency Research is launching its inaugural Central Bank Artificial Intelligence (CBAI) conference in London 25-26 September. The CBAI follows on directly from the Digital Currency Conference (DCC) which takes place at the same venue 23-24 September, in what the organisers are terming Payments, Innovation and Technology Week.