The Future of Cash Returns with Innovation at Heart of Format and Topics

The Future of Cash conference, which returns this year as an in-person event taking place 14-16 September in Madrid, was the first of its kind to bring together all stakeholders involved in the cash cycle.

The conference focuses on understanding the changing cash environment and what stakeholders are doing to optimise the cash cycle and ensure the future viability and sustainability of cash. Speakers and delegates include representatives from central banks, financial institutions, retailers, cash management companies, technology providers and other suppliers.

The 2022 event will feature three novel initiatives.

•            The Futures Literacy Lab on the role of Cash in The Future Monetary Landscape

Futures Literacy Labs are an advanced, field-tested methodology for gaining new insights into the nature and impact of imagined futures. In this Lab, participants will deploy their collective intelligence to present and assess probable and desirable futures of cash. 

Using action-research/action-learning tools the Lab will offer the opportunity to analyse the burning questions facing the future of cash. For instance, the fundamental ethical issues related to the future of cash, ranging from loss of privacy to concentration of knowledge and data. The Lab will take participants beyond deterministic extrapolations and techno fatalism to examine changes that are inspired by open and creative futures.

The Lab will be built around three three-hour sessions on 7 September (remote session), 8 September (remote session) and 14 September (in-person). Participants must engage in all three sessions to create the collective intelligence process.

•            CashTech Round Table and CashTech Innovation Awards

CashTech is the encounter between cash and technology. It brings together innovative companies who leverage software and modern communications technology to improve cash services – including access for consumers and businesses, facilitating the acceptance of cash by retailers across all channels, and enhancing cash’s overall efficiency, resilience and sustainability.

The CashTech Innovation Awards will celebrate the tremendous advances in harnessing digital technology to ensure an accessible, reliable and sustainable future for cash. Submissions may be sent here https://thefutureofcash.com/cashtech-awards/.

•            Research Seminar on the Cost of Payments

Measuring the costs of payments has always been a complex issue, and various studies have reached very different conclusions. At a time when the payment landscape is undergoing radical and potentially disruptive change, this topic will be debated with  researchers, academics, payments experts and economists.

The half day seminar, hosted by the think tank CashEssentials, will be held on Friday 16 September. All participants in the main part of the event are welcome to attend.

As for the programme for the main event, the first session – ‘Setting the Scene’ – will be divided into two parts, hearing from the Bank of Spain, ECB and Federal Reserve in the first part, and BnEI, Erste Bank, Natwest and LINK in the second.

The afternoon will be dedicated to roundtable discussions covering access to and acceptance of cash, cash and crises, CashTech and innovation, cash and CBDCs, and sustainability. Delegates will be able to rotate between the discussion, participating in a maximum of four.

The Futures Literacy Lab workshop will run in parallel.

The afternoon will conclude with a session on ‘Making the Case for Cash.

The next day, the opening session on ‘Towards a New Normal? The Role of Cash in the Future’ will hear from the Bank of Italy, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bundesbank and the European Savings and Retail Banking Group

It will be followed by a panel discussion on ‘The Role of Cash in the Future Monetary Landscape’, in which the futurists and facilitators from the Futures Literacy Lab will share their learnings from the lab as well as thoughts on the way forward

‘Cash, Innovation and CashTech’ is the title of the next session, with speakers from ATMIA, the National Bank and Röhrs Associates.

The afternoon concludes with a panel discussion on ‘Can CashTech Solve the Cash Condundrum’, with participants from from Sonect, Cashway, Pipit, Viafintech and Shrap. This session will end with  the presentation of the CashTech Innovation awards.

More information, and the full programme, can be viewed at www.thefutureofcash.com.