Shaping the cash cycle of the future

Barbara has been working at Narodowy Bank Polski for thirteen years. She began her career at Poland’s central bank as Deputy Director of the Cash and Issue Department, where she currently holds the position of Director.

Throughout her work at NBP, she has been involved in the introduction of a new series of circulation banknotes, changes in the denominational structure, and the development of new regulations governing cooperation with the cash market. She was responsible for the Hryvnia Exchange Program in Poland, which was later adopted as a model by other European countries. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG) and serves as the Chair of the Cash Circulation Council in Poland. She graduated from the University of Szczecin and completed postgraduate studies at the Faculty of Management at the University of Warsaw.

Diederik Bruggink is Senior Director at the European Savings and Retail Banking Group (ESBG) where he is responsible for all payments topics worldwide. In that role, he also advocates the associations’ positions on payments with policymakers, regulators, standardisation bodies, industry associations, and enabling a constant member dialogue on developments, with a particular focus on innovation. He is Chair of the Cash Efficiency Working Group of the European Payments Council (EPC) and he was co-chair of the Euro Retail Payments Board (ERPB) working group on access to and acceptance of cash. He is also a Member of the Board of the European Payments Council and he is a member of the European Commission’s Payments Systems Market Expert Group and he was a member of the European Central Bank’s Market Advisory Group on the Digital Euro, to name a few.

Dr. Andrzej Nowak is Head of Open Innovation at SICPA. His current focus includes the future of currency – whether in physical or digital form, privacy-preserving digital trust, fintech, and innovation systems. He contributes to the Bretton Woods Committee working groups on the Future of Finance and on AI, and serves as an expert for Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency.

Earlier, Andrzej led an innovation lab at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. There, he defined and put in place new elements of CERN’s 10-year technological horizon, led several Open Source efforts and founded educational initiatives for young scientists and engineers.

Andrzej also held roles in management consulting in private banking, at the chip maker Intel, as a founder of a fintech company, and as an evaluator for the EU Research Executive Agency. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Marc Schwartz, born in 1963 in Paris, is Chairman and CEO of La Monnaie de Paris, the French National Mint. He is also a lecturer in media and cultural economics at Sciences Po, a leading Social Sciences University in Paris.

Marc Schwartz started his career as an Auditor with the National Court of Audit (Cour des comptes) in 1988 and joined the Treasury Department in 1992. He became, in 1997, special advisor to the minister for Economy, Finance and Industry and to the secretary of State for Budget.

He joined the media group France Télévisions in 2000, as CFO, then deputy CEO. In 2010, he became a senior partner with the international audit and consulting firm Forvis-Mazars, in charge of Public Sector and Media. He returned to the Cour des Comptes in 2014 and was appointed Chief of Staff to the minister of Culture in 2017, before joining Monnaie de Paris in 2018.

He holds a BA’s in economics and public finance (Sciences Po), certificates of finance and international finance from the London School of Economics (LSE), a master in corporate finance from Conservatoire national des Arts et métiers (CNAM), and a master of public administration from Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA).

Marc Schwartz is the author of various articles on monetary and financial issues and of two books: The French Financial System (Montchrestien, 1992) and The New Currency War (Odile Jacob, 2025), co-authored with Pr. Christian de Boissieu.

Jim Leroux is the CEO of Pin4, a global leader in cardless cash disbursement solutions, enabling secure, instant, and convenient cash payouts across ATMs and retail partner locations. With a presence spanning 200 countries and a network of over 500k cash pick-up points worldwide, Pin4 empowers businesses, governments, and humanitarian organizations to deliver cash quickly and reliably—even to individuals without payment cards or bank accounts. Jim has been active in fintech for over 30 years as an operator, investor, advisor and attorney, with a focus on new innovations in the payments and fintech industries.

Economist at Banco de España since 1993, with experience in branch operations, securities settlement, and cash management. He worked at Iberclear (Spanish Central Securities Depository) from 2003 to 2015, coordinating connections to Target2 and T2S. Since 2015, back in Banco de España, he has focused on cash operations, serving as Head of the Coins Unit (2018–2020) and currently leading the Cash Policies Division, with direct responsibilities on cash issuance, analysis, statistics, regulation and procedures, management of cash central reserves and distribution of cash among Banco de España dependencies or, through international transports, within and outside the Eurosystem.

Professor Franz Seitz teaches Economics with a special focus on Monetary Policy and Financial Markets at Weiden Technical University of Applied Sciences in Germany. He is author of numerous articles in national and international journals. His main fields of research are monetary theory and policy, financial markets as well as payments markets, especially cash in circulation. For many years, Professor Seitz has been acting as a consultant in different projects for central banks, commercial banks and financial as well as non-financial corporations.

Matthee le Cointre is strategist at Geldmaat, where he drives innovation across the cash value chain. He leads initiatives in payments strategy, exploring alternative transactions and digital currencies, and contributes to policy development around the digitale euro. His work includes strategic foresight on the future of cash, scenario planning, and shaping Geldmaat’s long-term positioning in the payments landscape.