If we look at the frighteningly long list of disasters and crises in 2022 and the start of 2023, these events are random, often unexpected and usually large scale. What connects them all is the disruption of the ability to use digital payments. The knee jerk answer historically is to turn to cash.

January 2023 marks the 20th birthday of Currency News™, so we thought we would take a quick tour of the last two decades and provide a back-of-the-envelope analysis of the differences in the cash ecosystem, and issues and priorities, between then and now.

A review of this year's headlines.

To coincide with the Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum™ in mid-November, Reconnaissance issued a whitepaper – ‘What Goes Round Comes Round’.

One of the defining characteristics of the mint industry, compared with the banknote industry, is the level of cooperation between the various producers. Another has been its apparent stability. Perhaps the two are related.

The death of HM Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September was a time of mourning and reflection on her remarkable life as the second longest reigning monarch in history.

Most of us will have our own experience of what it is like to be in a situation where you can neither access cash nor pay with it.

The Banque de France (BdF) has announced that the construction of a new banknote printworks on the same site as its paper mill in Vic-le-Comte (Europafi) is going ahead, and will be completed in 2026 at a cost of €220 million.

The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing EMEA conference.

In his review of the Global Currency Forum, Wolfram Seidemann, Chairman of the ICA, compared the priorities of the cash industry in the past with today. Then, he said, the key priorities were security, efficiency and quality of notes is circulation. Fast forward several years, and the priorities look very different now.