After several months of a COVID-enforced digital only publication of Currency News™, we are happy to announce the resumption of the hard-copy distribution of the newsletter from July. Thank you for your patience during the disruption and we ask a little more forbearance as delivery services attempt to return to something like their pre-COVID levels.

Currency Research has announced a webinar focusing on ‘Currency Use and Banknote Technology’, in support of the combined Banknote & Currency Conference.

Glory’s annual results, announced last month, showed a 3% drop in sales to ¥217 billion, and a 20% drop in operating income to ¥14 billion.

The lockdowns and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic have had a great influence on retail shopping and payment habits. Besides the increase in online shopping, the growing use of contactless and mobile payments media have decreased the use of cash in transactions. Several recent payment studies confirm these developments.

The Bank of Albania has unveiled the next two denominations in its new series – the 1,000 and 10,000 lekës, which go into circulation at the end of June.

This month’s Cash & Payment News™ focuses on the environment, research on cash usage, payment challenges and token-based Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

Public support for the euro has reached an all-time high, according to the European Commission's latest Eurobarometer survey.

COVID has given companies the opportunity to reflect and look at sustainability and the environment with more pressing urgency. There have been webinars and virtual conferences where this topic has been headlining, with paper manufacturers in particular demonstrating their activities to reduce carbon footprints and ensure the future and life cycle of banknotes is protected.

Gleitsmann Security Inks (GSI) has launched what it terms the ‘world’s first traffic light for banknotes’ in the form of mouve ^GSI, a unique security feature that will help safeguard cash and other security documents using luminescent colour effects.

The introduction of the new £50 was undertaken by the Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, at a special ceremony at Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two codebreakers and where Alan Turing, the subject of the note, carried out his most famous work breaking the Enigma code.

Cash in the UK is in an interesting place at the moment. The cash paradox – higher demand, lower use – is very much in evidence, as are growing concerns about the future of cash allied to branch and ATM closures, concerted moves from the government downwards to encourage people to pay digitally, and what the cash infrastructure could and should look like in the future.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published its 2020/21 Annual Report which saw a small rise in demand for banknotes and the RBI continuing with its programme of developing how it does its business.

This is now the sixth Industry Watch, covering 18 months, where COVID-19 has been the main factor influencing market values and trends, both directly and indirectly.

The week before the issue of the new £50, the Bank of England published its annual report for 2020/21, which showed an increase in notes in circulation of £10.3 billion (14%). It credited this increase to the launch of the new polymer £20 note in February 2020 and the pandemic. These figures are quite a contrast to the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report, also issued recently, which saw a 7.2% increase.

The think-tank CashEssentials in collaboration with Wipplay, a community platform dedicated to photography, is back this year for its fourth photo contest, this time inviting participants to focus on imaging the future through the medium of currency.

The ATM Security Association (ASA) has launched a new worldwide Crisis and Crime Management Intelligence System (CCMIS).

The Mint of Finland, the leading exporter of coins and blanks with 99% of sales coming from overseas customers (up from 93% in 2019), reported near-flat consolidated revenue of €57.2 million in 2020, and an operating loss of €5.1 million (versus €1.4 million the previous year).

In December 2020, the global cash community joined forces in an initiative called HUMANIA to support people who have been most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Whilst the focus on cash is generally concentrated on substrates and features, production and circulation, the end of life is also key as regards the secure, clean and efficient disposal of both waste and notes no longer fit for circulation.

It was only a matter of time! One of the claimed benefits of polymer is that it is more resistant to counterfeiting and hence more secure, and the figures bear that out.