The Future of Cash in the 20s and Beyond

While the covid-19 pandemic impacted cash withdrawals at ATMs and pushed up digital payments, millions of citizens around the world turned to cash as a store of value in the crisis, and levels of cash withdrawals soon bounced back.

2020 also saw the launch of the online self-certification system for the API App model for Next Gen ATMs, which will integrate ATMs into the mobile-digital world, with the mobile phone replacing the plastic card for ATM transactions. Next Gen ATMs include a standard cash in/cash out functionality, with coin support, which will enable pre-staged ATM app cash transactions to be carried out in under 10 seconds, creating fast Next Gen cash. In addition, there will be cryptocurrency-to-cash or cash-to-cryptocurrency functionality, blending the digital and hard cash to illustrate, once again, the “phygital” character of ATMs.

Meanwhile the regulatory support for banning cashless retail establishments is gaining traction in the USA and in other markets of the world to ensure payment choice is a right enjoyed by all citizens, preventing discrimination against cash users and reinforcing the central concept of cash as legal tender. It is widely recognized that the so-called cashless society, which exists nowhere in the world more than 50 years after it was first mentioned, would pose serious vulnerabilities for citizens during power failures, cyber-attacks by hostile powers or natural disasters, in addition to being inherently discriminatory.

Consequently, there will be a role for cash for societies across the world for decades to come, while it is now unsure if plastic cards will survive beyond 2030 in the mobile-digital world. The love affair between humanity and cash, in the eyes of ATMIA and the Consortium for Next Gen ATMs, is likely to endure far into the future.

About Mike Lee, ATMIA CEO - Mike Lee has been CEO of ATMIA since 2005. He is a qualified futurist and his second book on study of the future Codebreaking our Future is available on Amazon.  Mike is President of the ATM Security Association and Chairperson of the Consortium for Next Gen ATMs.