This month we highlight a number of challenging areas for digital payments, rising card fees in the US and Germany, research that suggests people select banks based on branch proximity and that the pain of paying leads people to spend more and make unwise choices.

As is widely recognised, the invention of the ATM has been one of the single most significant developments in the history of money – providing it with the core attributes of near-universal availability and convenience that continue to this day.

De La Rue’s results for 2020-21 were not expected to be easy to understand or compare with the previous year(s) due to all the changes that took place, continued this last year and will continue, albeit to a much lesser extent this coming financial year. However, the main takeaway is that the company is alive and well and positive about its future.

Swedish cash management service provider Loomis has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets and liabilities of SecurePost AG, a subsidiary of Die Schweizerische Post (Swiss Post Group).

The Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) conference has now moved wholly online on 4-6 October 2021. Registration is now open.

There is much talk and activity around Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) at the moment, particularly retail CBDCs. As one reads the papers and listens to the frequent webinars about them, it is striking that there is a requirement for CBDCs to replicate the performance of cash. And that is clearly proving a challenge.

Despite the increase in production at the US Mint, coins for general circulation are still struggling to keep pace with public demand, forcing the Federal Reserve to again limit orders from its customers, especially for dimes and quarter dollars. It is monitoring its inventories to determine whether order limits will be extended to cents and 5 cent coins as well.

The Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, Mikhail Alekseev, has provided local media with more details of the new Russian series, which will start going into circulation with the new 100 rubles in 2022. It will be followed by the 1,000 and 5,000 rubles in 2023, the 500 rubles in 2024 and 10 and 50 rubles in 2025. The 200 and 2,000 rubles, both introduced in 2017, will not be included in the new series.

In November 2021 the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, will take place in Glasgow. Currency News™ has started work to issue a paper, ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability’, ahead of the conference.

Royal Dutch Kusters Engineering, the oldest manufacturer of currency destruction systems, is celebrating its 110th anniversary this year, on 9 June.

CCL Secure has unveiled SPARTAN™ – an ‘ultra-durable’ new polymer substrate that has been designed specifically to provide a new option for central banks and issuing authorities who have low denomination, high transaction velocity denominations that sit on the cusp of the note/coin boundary.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is celebrating not just its 70th anniversary, and the 30th anniversary of the National Banknote Printing Plant, but is also marking its 18th year of using polymer banknotes from CCL Secure.

The MDC has announced the new dates and locations for the Mint Directors Conference.

Following the success of the Future of Cash online event in February 2021, the organisers – AGIS Consulting and CashEssentials – are continuing the conversation and providing a coherent story of today’s cash challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.

Reconnaissance International, organisers of the Optical Document Security™ and Digital Document Security™ conferences, have announced that these are to be combined into one new ‘super-event’ for physical, digital and virtual documents – Optical & Digital Document Security™ – which will take place in-person in Vienna from 17-19 January 2022.

COVID19 led to a decline in the number of counterfeit banknotes in 2020. Or did it?

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).

Brink’s has bought PAI, Inc, the largest privately-held provider of ATM services in the US, for $213 million. PAI offers managed services and tools for ATM owner-operators, as well as owning its own ATMs. It writes its own software, providing cash management and maintenance solutions for ATMs.

The evolution of the security thread has happened at breakneck speed, with the pace accelerating in recent years. Today 95% of all paper banknotes contain a security thread and the options available can feel bewildering even to those familiar with banknotes. There is now a new way to make sense of all this – read the just published ‘Security Threads for Banknote’ report from Currency News™.

In last month’s Currency News™, Clemens Berger of Louisenthal wrote about the importance of embedded security features and how they are the benchmark for the overwhelming majority of banknotes. This month, he follows up with more information specifically on how their substrate family – Hybrid ADDvance® – is part of that story.