The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City has written a paper investigating who is underserved when it comes to digital payments, the starting point for working out how to include them in today’s digital economy.

Bank Indonesia (BI) has published a paper on a technical proof of concept (PoC) for a wholesale CBDC (wCBDC). BI had compared R3’s Corda enterprise blockchain and Ethereum-based Hyperledger Besu, but the report did not make a definitive choice at this stage.

At the 2024 Association for Financial Professionals national conference in the US treasurers from Starbucks, Staples and Inspire Brands (who run a number of US restaurant chains) explained the benefits of using smart safes for cash management.

While the revolution in information and communication technology, the emergence of China as a global manufacturing exporter, and the expansion of global value chains in the 1980s started a new phase of globalisation, the relatively recent rise in e-commerce and direct-to-customer sales, facilitated by online retail platforms, is leading to a new feature of international trade, namely an increase in the number of low-value transactions.

A Norges Bank survey estimates only 3% of consumers pay with cash, although more would do so if shops would accept cash. Norges Bank and the government have recently added an amendment to the Central Bank Act that clarifies consumers’ right to pay with cash up to an amount of 20,000 kroner.

The US regulator, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), wants to extend its regulatory scrutiny to include tech giants such as Apple and Google and their digital payment apps and wallets.

The Deputy Governor of Norges Bank, Pal Longva, has said that Norway has ‘no urgency’ around its digital currency initiatives. Norway has completed four stages of CBDC investigation. It is now concentrating on applications of wholesale CBDCs in a fifth phase of work to be completed by the end of 2025.

At the ATMIA Europe & Emerging Markets conference in October Thierry Lebeaux, Secretary General of the European Security Transport Association (ESTA) presented about the impact of less cash in the euro area on the cash in transit industry. Dr Rüdiger Voss also presented on the European Commission Euro protection and euro cash.

In September Franz Seitz and Gerhard Rösl published a paper laying out the challenges and risks faced by cash in countries moving to being less cash societies. It is a tour de force providing both facts and arguments about what can be done. It provides the context and the arguments for the future of cash discussions heard at every conference this autumn – ATMIA, Coin, Retail Branch Transformation, High Security Print.

Pascal Wicht, Strategic Designer at SICPA, presented at October’s ATMIA conference on the social role of cash, particularly for Gen Z. This work forms part of the International Currency Associations (ICA) programme of understanding and advocating for cash by going beyond the pure retail and payment functions of cash.

Matt Sykes of The CPT Group has published an interesting article on LinkedIn. While it discusses recent changes, and possible changes, to the Australian cash system, the article raises questions for all.

To pick out a small number of presentations, NCR Atleos and Brinks talked about the trend to outsource ATM services and management. Tietoevcy focused on a different type of outsourcing, ATM pooling using Bankomat in Sweden and Geldmaat in the Netherlands as examples, and the Eika Alliance in Norway presented their pooling operations and approach to banking.

Domestic ATM cash withdrawals are subject to interchange fees, which are designed to compensate ATM deployers for operational costs. These fees have remained largely unchanged for years, in spite of rising operational costs. This divergence poses a threat to the sustainability of ATM networks.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a hot topic and there are a number of conferences focusing on how central banks could, and should, be using it. Jelena Stapf, Head of Division Branch operations, IT Applications and Automation, Bundesbank (BBk), presented how the BBk’s cash demand is using it at the ATMIA conference.

The Datos Retail Branch Transformation Europe event in London brought together the full cross section of organisations involved in cash management, including central and commercial banks, cash management and cash in transit companies, machines and software suppliers, think tanks and more, in the context of creating the retail bank branches fit for today’s reality.

The Digital Currency Conference took place in London in September this year, starting with a workshop focused on the Digital Pound. This spent time trying to establish the use cases that make a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) a necessity so that it is actually used. This is a recurring topic currently as central banks work through whether to introduce a CBDC.

At the Digital Currency Conference, the Bank of Israel (BOI) laid out its CBDC approach starting with looking at the rapid growth of digital payments as a proportion of all payments across the world. Cash may be holding up in absolute numbers but relative to the total, it is falling fast.

SICPA recently issued its 2023 Sustainability Report. Following the publication of its first Corporate Social Responsibility report in 2013, this report details its systematic approach across the whole spectrum of ESG activities.

A staff working paper by the Bank of Canada seeks to understand what would be possible if Canadians made more mobile payments.

As we are aware, the use of cash is most certainly not being promoted with the same vigour that the use of electronic or mobile payments has been in recent media and advertising.