Building on the growing focus on the environmental impact of cash use, Leeann Shanks - Sustainability Lead Cash & Self Service Operations at NatWest Group - described the work at her bank (both an issuer of banknotes in Scotland and a major participant in the British wholesale and retail cash supply chain) and the broader United Kingdom Cash Industry Environmental Charter Group which is working towards a greener cash cycle. Key takeaways were the need for better data points to measure tangible targets and how practical steps such as the reduction of plastic banknote packaging are having not just real environmental but also significant cost-saving benefits.
In his presentation, Diederik Bruggink of the European Savings and Retail Banking Group reported on findings from the European Retail Payments Board Report on Access to and Acceptance of Cash, while Graham Mott from the LINK ATM Scheme provided insights into changing ATM demand in the United Kingdom in a presentation entitled ‘Emerging from the Pandemic, but into the Cost of Living Crises’.
Issues discussed here - including access to cash, acceptance of cash and cash and crises - were three of six themes debated later in a series of ‘speed dating’ style round table discussions.
Three other speakers, Javier Rupérez from Spanish cash campaign Platform Denaria, Brett Scott Author of Cloudmoney and Zennan Green at Glory Global Solutions all made forceful presentations in defence of cash.
Denaria, which was set up last year and is funded by the Spanish CIT sector, has already been successful in the campaign to give Spaniards the right to pay in cash, which was enshrined into law this summer. In demonstrating the success of advocacy at a local level, it perhaps provides a blueprint for advocacy groups in other countries and their efforts to maintain cash as a public good.
Brett Scott , who as well as an author is described as a monetary anthropologist , gave a fascinating view on what drives consumer payment behaviour, and how BigTech exploits this. Humans, he said, are essentially mimetic – i.e. they subconsciously follow one another – and payment companies, by driving out choice, are nudging the public into following the path to cashless.
On a more practical note, Zennan Green demonstrated that solutions are there to facilitate access to and availability of cash given the rapid closure in many countries of bank branches and ATMs. Glory – traditionally a supplier of automation technology for those bank branches – provides many of the new generations of solution, having recently embarked on a round of investment into companies that are harnessing digital technology to ensure physical access.
