Rwanda is a relatively small land-locked African country in the Great Rift Valley bordering Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the most densely populated mainland African country with a young, mainly rural population numbering 12.6 million.

The Economist Intelligence Unit has issued a paper, ‘Going Digital. Payments in the Post-Covid World’. It is interesting both for what it says and how it says it.

There have been a number of articles this year about financial products targeting children with the aim of teaching them to save, spend and think about money ready for when they are adults.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has gone public encouraging people to use coins and to return them into the cash cycle. After the coin hiatus last year, which saw the formation of the Coin Taskforce and limits on the issue of coins to retailers and institutions, the situation had eased with the limits lifted and normal service resuming.

The Bank of Korea is investigating adjustments needed in the payment system if CBDCs are launched. The Kakao consortium and two tech affiliates of the Samsung Group are to run a pilot programme for issuing and distributing CBDCs and looking at transferring money and remittances between countries.

Following the Digital Monetary Institute’s (DMI) CBDC conference in April this year and the announcement of ‘The CBDC Conference’ 3-6 October 2021, there is now a rush to hold CBDC dedicated events.

aRussia’s second largest bank, VTB, has been working on tools to identify the optimum location for bank branches and ATMs. It has used a wide range of parameters, over 5,000, to calculate how to reach the most customers and generate the most sales from a new location.

CSMPI’s latest Insight magazine reports on card fee changes in 2021 around the world. It suggests that each tweak in the fees may appear small but, overall, the additional revenue is likely to be over $1.1 billion in the US alone.

The Banca d’Italia (BdI) issued a technical paper in July analysing 20 years of cash data to understand cash circulation, important to a central bank for planning cash production and its monetary policy implementation framework.

As an initial member of the European Retail Payment Board (ERPB) working group, the European Security and Transport Association (ESTA), supported by other organisations, sought to foster debate on a number of issues relevant to ‘obstacles to cash acceptance’, a topic being investigated by the ERPB and about which it had issued a questionnaire.

LINK, who run the UK’s main shared interbank network of cash machines, has commissioned a report to look at how the UK’s cash distribution industry can reduce its carbon footprint.

The Federal Reserve Board (FRB) of Atlanta has published an article by Oz Shy, ‘Digital Currency, Digital Payments, and the ‘last mile’ to the unbanked.’ As the number of cashless locations increases, the article considers what stops people going digital and looks at policy options in response.

The European Retail Payment Board (ERPB) issued a questionnaire about acceptance and access to cash in April 2021. In mid-April the European Secure Transportation Association (ESTA) withdrew from the ERPB working group on the basis that the ERPB’s investigation about cash usage was too narrow.

In September 2020 Reconnaissance Consulting Group was asked to consider what would happen to cash at a future moment where the world economy and society had re-opened living with COVID.

The Optical Document Security and Digital Document Security conferences have now been combined into one ‘super-conference’, Optical & Digital Document Security (ODDS).

The Dutch National Bank (DNB) has written to the Dutch House of Representatives presenting its report, ‘The Future of Cash Infrastructure in the Netherlands’. The DNB commissioned a study from McKinsey in December last year as the basis for this report.

The Bundesbank held its international cash conference in June 2021 on the topic of ‘Cash in Times of Turmoil’. The future of cash was extensively explored alongside the impact of the pandemic on cash usage and consumer behaviour.

Financial crime, particularly digital financial crime, can feel victimless. The losses are factored into the fees and charges which are passed on in higher prices and the press seldom focus on the distress and stress caused to individuals faced with criminal activity.

Enryo, the payment consultancy, addressed the ‘cash paradox’ in a recent piece in Finextra.

As a reminder, CBDC announcements were made in May relating to Brazil, Georgia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Norway, Pakistan and Russia and in June to Indonesia, Korea, Mauritius, South Africa and Thailand.