At the end of last year, the Eurosystem Research Network on Cash (EURECA) held a workshop at the European Central Bank (ECB) to consider the latest currency research.

At the Future of Cash conference in Warsaw last November, there were a number of presentations and conversations about ATM business models and interchange fees.

A new Deutsche Bundesbank study, ‘The cost of payment methods in the retail sector accessible’, analyses both monetary costs – fees, charges, equipment and transport costs – and non-monetary costs – the time spent by retailers using payment instruments at the point of sale or for administrative expenses.

The CB+DC Conference, which focuses on digital currencies and payments, will hold two events in 2026, one in Kuala Lumpur hosted at Sasana Kijang, the Bank Negara Malaysia’s training facility, 12–14 May and one in Amsterdam 27–29 October. Registration is now open.

At the Future of Cash conference in October, Roel van Anholt from the Dutch National Bank (DNB) explained the steps taken to strengthen cash resilience.

Reviewing the year shows that the arguments for and examples of the value of cash have piled up this year and come into sharper relief. At the same time, our progress in turning that into a new cash era remains limited. Concurrently, the landscape for new digital payments has got more complicated and big issues remain to be resolved. So we end the year with many positives and much to do.

A World Bank blog looks at fast payment systems (FPS) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) based on a new World Bank report that analyses data on FPS across 11 LAC countries. It found that the introduction of digital wallets has simplified the process and reduced the cost of transferring money in LAC. However, friction remains due to siloed payment infrastructures and uncompetitive markets.

The South African payments processor PayInc, formerly BankservAfrica, now has South African Reserve Bank (SARB) as a 50% shareholder, alongside leading commercial banks – Absa, Access Bank, African Bank, Capitec, Citibank SA, FirstRand, Investec, Nedbank and Standard Bank.

Nigeria’s federal government has banned the use of physical cash for revenue payments and directed all ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to deploy point-of-sale terminals within 45 days, as part of a sweeping shift toward full electronic revenue collection.

Bazil Sansom, a Research Fellow at Warwick Business School, has written a useful summary of the UK’s stablecoin challenge for Finextra. Over the last few weeks, both the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England (the Bank) have spoken about the future of money in the UK in a number of forums. A new stablecoin consultation has also just been opened.

An IMF paper examines stablecoins’ potential benefits and risks while surveying emerging international regulatory frameworks.

G+D has bought the Payments & Banking Services business of Bank-Verlag, which processes 25% of card and internet payment transactions in Germany.

Currency Research (CR) hosted its annual Americas Cash Cycle Seminar earlier this month in Miami, returning to South Florida after an eight-year absence. The 2025 edition welcomed 214 delegates from 99 organisations – including 35 central and commercial banks – from 36 countries, making it the best-attended Americas Seminar in more than a decade, according to CR.

Norges Bank has assessed whether introducing a CBDC is appropriate to ensure that paying with the Norwegian krone will remain secure, efficient and attractive.

The National Bank of Kazakhstan has taken to LinkedIn to report progress on the Digital Tenge and to state that it is open to collaboration on CBDCs, programmable payments and what it refers to as GovTech. The Digital Tenge is already live, and it is providing a working programmable finance system that’s already part of the country’s financial infrastructure.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs issued its draft report on the European Commission’s proposal for a regulation on the establishment of the digital euro on 3 November.

Pascal Wicht presented SICPA’s research on Gen Z at the Future of Cash. The title of the presentation was ‘Cash in a Careless System – Reframing Value, Autonomy and Resilience’. And it was a thought-provoking presentation.

Barbara Jaroszek, Director, Cash and Issue Department at Narodowy Bank Polski (NBP), spoke about ‘Poland’s Paybook for Unthinkable Times’ at the Future of Cash conference in Warsaw on 4 November.

We are in a different place compared with even two years ago and the conversation about the future of cash is changing substantially. This was visible in the agenda and the conversations of this year’s Future of Cash conference, which took place in Warsaw at the start of November.

Reuter has reported that Visa and Mastercard have agreed a $38 billion settlement with US retailers over interchange fees by agreeing to cut interchange fees, which typically average 2-2.5% per transaction, by a tenth of a percentage point over several years.