Artificial Intelligence (AI) roared into the public consciousness in 2023. Its widespread use and, more importantly, its potential have become visible to all, not just the small specialist user community that has been working on it for years. Clearly, AI is of great interest to central banks from the policy makers through the cash issue department.

As published in July`s edition of Currency News, Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) held its Currency Technology Symposium 2023 that month in Munich, the main themes of which were resilience, hyper-efficiency and sustainability within the cash cycle, and the role of cash in today´s world.

Currency News™ sat down with Marilou in one of CBN’s three manufacturing facilities in Ottawa to find out more about the company, its markets, its unique strengths, and how she is managing to continue the legacy of her husband and put culture and people at the heart of everything CBN does.

The London Climate Technology Show, which took place end September, was full of start-ups and other more established companies offering solutions to measure your environmental footprint, to offset your carbon, to sequester your carbon in the soil/ocean/trees etc. etc. etc.

CBDCs started to become visible in published papers and discussions around 2016. No doubt there was much material before then but the acceleration of interest and activity has taken CBDCs from a niche to main stream media discussions.

Demonetisation has had something of a bad press in recent years, the disruption caused by the removal of the 500 and 1,000 rupees in India of 2016 and, more recently, Nigeria’s naira redesign being cases in point.

If you are responsible for the design and issue of a new banknote, you face a daunting task. As the latest edition of Currency News™ suggests, it can be a complex and unenviable undertaking. Frankly, good luck!

We are used to a steady stream of headlines about cashless payments. But here are a handful of headlines in English speaking publications from the last few months:

Whilst we have reported in the last two issues on broadly positive financial results for the cash management sector, the same cannot be said of the banknote production side of the industry, as De La Rue’s recent trading update shows.

In the current time of great uncertainty, with multiple crises colliding, the supply of cash plays a central role in securing a functioning economic system. At the same time, the cash infrastructure is coming under pressure economically. Thus, a resilient cash cycle that adapts quickly to changing circumstances is becoming increasingly important for central banks.