Group items tagged

"Research on holding and use of cash involves many aspects, such as reasons for holding and hoarding cash, transactional demand for cash, cash management, type of spending paid with cash, type of consumer who pays cash, merchant acceptance, how consumers get cash, currency denominations, legal aspects, cash substitutes, and cost of cash. The purpose of this article is to introduce the reader to some of the research economists do on consumer holding and use of cash." https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=15998

In 2021 the European Central Bank (ECB) launched its first survey on the usage of cash among companies to understand their strategic view on the current and future use and acceptance of cash. It found that almost all businesses surveyed accept cash (even in cash-lite countries, like the Netherlands, 90% accept cash), most businesses prefer customers to pay with card but a quarter prefer cash, security and reliability are the top criteria when deciding on payment type, and very few that accept cash intend to stop accepting it in the future. The ECB concluded that the results provide further support for the Eurosystem's cash strategy to continue to ensure that cash remains widely available and accepted as a means of payment and store of value.

"We estimate the effect of Bitcoin ownership on the level of cash holdings of Canadian consumers. Bitcoin ownership positively correlates with cash holdings even after accounting for selection into ownership via a control function approach. On average, Bitcoin owners hold 83 percent (in 2018) to 95 percent (in 2017) more cash than non-owners. Focusing on the quantiles of cash holdings, we find that Bitcoin ownership has a highly nonlinear effect. For example, the difference in cash holdings between Bitcoin owners and non-owners in 2017 varies from 63 percent at the 25th quantile of cash to 176 percent at the 95th quantile of cash. Our results provide some evidence to reject the hypothesis that new digital currencies or technologies, such as Bitcoin, will lead to a decline in cash holdings."

This study investigates whether contactless credit cards are an important contributor to the decline in cash transactions, based on Canadian panel data from 2010 to 2017. It shows that unobserved factors influence cash use, and these must be controlled for when estimating the impact of contactless credit cards on cash use. It also shows the different effects that contactless credit cards have on the choice to pay with cash (the extensive margin) and on how much cash is used (the intensive margin). The study finds that the use of contactless credit cards negatively influences how much cash is spent but not whether to pay in cash. Overall, the impact of contactless credit cards on the transactional demand for cash in Canada is small over the 2010-17 period, at about 3 percent. These results are in line with previous findings for Canada and elsewhere.

Most Latin American consumers remain conspicuous cash users. Thus, CashTech could be very successful as specialists are looking for ways to bridge the gap between the digital economy and the cash economy, and many incumbents and startups have launched CashTech solutions in the region. For examples, banks have implemented cardless cash withdrawals through their apps, Amazon allows users in the region to pay for goods with cash through Amazon PayCode and Amazon Cash, and retail chain OXXO, which provides cash and correspondent banking services in its more than 19,000 stores in Mexico, has partnered with BBVA and Santander to offer cash-withdrawal services and with Ria Money Transfer to delivers cash remittances.

"This paper examines the financial stability risks associated with tokenized cash, a subset of stablecoins fully reserved with cash and cash equivalents. Using a combination of on-chain data together with uniquely collected wallet address labels, we construct empirical measures of liquidity ratios and run off rates on the largest cash token and characterize its users and their behavior. The overall circulation of tokenized cash is largely insulated from crypto price movements, though price changes correlate with re-balancing between smart contracts and private wallets. A liquidity ratio calculation, similar in concept to Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), indicates that tokenized cash has at least two times the amount of High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) when compared to the worst observed gross outflow over 30-day ahead periods. We discuss the implications of tokenized cash on safe asset creation, credit supply, and monetary policy transmission. The adoption of tokenized cash can reduce moral hazard risks from public guarantees and expand credit provision through market-based lending enabled by smart contracts."

"This paper examines the financial stability risks associated with tokenized cash, a subset of stablecoins fully reserved with cash and cash equivalents. Using a combination of on-chain data together with uniquely collected wallet address labels, we construct empirical measures of liquidity ratios and run off rates on the largest cash token and characterize its users and their behavior. The overall circulation of tokenized cash is largely insulated from crypto price movements, though price changes correlate with re-balancing between smart contracts and private wallets. A liquidity ratio calculation, similar in concept to Liquidity Coverage Ratio (LCR), indicates that tokenized cash has at least two times the amount of High-Quality Liquid Assets (HQLA) when compared to the worst observed gross outflow over 30-day ahead periods. We discuss the implications of tokenized cash on safe asset creation, credit supply, and monetary policy transmission. The adoption of tokenized cash can reduce moral hazard risks from public guarantees and expand credit provision through market-based lending enabled by smart contracts. "

The Bank of England conducted surveys in 2021 to gain further insights into the store of value role of banknotes. They confirm that over the past decade, the fall in transactional cash use in the UK has been accompanied by a rise in the value of notes in circulation. Covid intensified this trend. As Covid restrictions have lifted, there has been a partial recovery in cash use, and more recently, a stabilization in cash use trends. The value of notes in circulation remains elevated, as people are holding more cash as a store of value.  And there remains a sizable share of the population who value cash and for whom cash remains their preferred means of payment. The Bank reiterated its commitment to  to ensure that cash remains available and accessible for those who want to use it.

This Bank of Canada study examines how the pandemic has influenced the demand for and use of cash using data from its Bank Note Distribution System. These data show that the value of notes in circulation grew sharply in March and April. Part of the increase reflects precautionary steps taken by financial institutions to increase their cash inventories during the pandemic, given concerns about possible disruptions to cash transportation services, and to reduce the risk of cash stockouts from potential customer demand. The flow of cash deposits from retailers to financial institutions, which would typically help replenish institutions' note inventories, was disrupted during the pandemic. As a result, financial institutions compensated for this shortfall by drawing cash from the Bank of Canada.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) published a paper on Australians' cash usage. It finds that the use of cash for day-to-day transactions continues to decline. Although the acceptance of cash by merchants remains at a high level, it is a little lower than prior to the pandemic. Nevertheless, some communities, particularly in rural areas, are increasingly susceptible to a decline in cash access if there were to be further removal of cash access points. Furthermore, many merchants indicated plans to discourage cash payments at some point in the future. 

Crunchfish's Digital Cash Wallet compliments any digital payment service on smart cards or in digital wallets with capabilities that replicates paying with cash. A two-step hierarchical architecture makes Digital Cash payments independent from the net, offering instant clearing offline at the moment of payment, followed by settlement online to move money between accounts. The Digital Cash Wallet has a mirrored virtual online account which is debited when either the payer or the receiver connects online. The virtual account may only be debited from the Digital Cash Wallet, protecting against overdrafts, and it also registers all activity in the Digital Cash Wallet. VISA has recently proposed this two-tier architecture for CBDC.

The Bank of Canada provided an update on the impact the COVID-19 pandemic on the demand for cash and the use of methods of payment based on data from the Bank Note Distribution System and from consumer surveys conducted in April and August 2021. Cash in circulation remained high throughout 2021, driven mainly by demand for large-denomination notes. Canadians' holdings of cash on hand in April (median $70) and August (median $80) were comparable to results seen in 2020. Other cash holdings reported by Canadians remained elevated, with a median value of $260 in August. In August 2021, 62% of Canadians used cash for payments, and indicators of merchant acceptance of cash improved in both the April and August surveys. A large majority of Canadians (around 80%) in 2021 continued reporting that they have no plans to go cashless in the next five years.

The outbreak of Covid-19 has caused a global increase in the amount of cash in the economies of Canada, Europe, US, and the UK. But the big increase in cash-in-circulation is not due to an increase in withdrawals of cash. There is much less cash being returned to banks and ATMs - businesses and individuals simply aren't redepositing their banknotes. This article argues that is probably being driven by an unwanted accumulation of cash by crooks, because the network of restaurants and other businesses that they rely on to launder their funds have all shut down thanks to virus fears and lockdowns. So throughout the pandemic they have been accumulating ever more cash from the drug using customers, with no place to offload it.

In the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic the way people use cash has changed, with less being used for transactions. However, the total value of banknotes in circulation has increased as people appear to choose to hold more cash. These trends have persisted for a number of years, but have been magnified by the pandemic. People seem to be holding more cash for contingency reasons, in line with cash's established role as an emergency means of payment. Also, cash use - particularly in non-retail environments - may have recovered as lockdown measures eased and economic activity picked up, but cash is taking longer to be deposited.

Crunchfish Digital Cash separates the payment process into three distinct steps - Reserve-Pay-Settle: 1. Reserve funds in a bank account and represent it as an offline balance in a Digital Cash Wallet. 2. Pay by debiting the offline balance in the Digital Cash Wallet. Offline payments are transferred using proximity interaction, e.g. QR or BLE, and are verified in a Digital Cash Verifier (for P2B transactions) or in the Digital Cash Wallet (for P2P transactions). 3. Settle Digital Cash transactions by transferring money from the payer's bank account with the reserved funds to the payee's bank account. The transfer can be initiated by both the payee and the payer, whoever gets connectivity first.

According to Payments Canada, while the value of cash used in purchases has declined 41% from 2017-2022, only 13% of Canadians report having gone completely cashless. Of the 87% that still use cash, 31% use cash for day-to-day purchases, and 37% hold on to it for emergencies. While cash is used less often for point-of-sale purchases, the prospect of cashless stores is a concern for 52% of Canadians. And they are divided on the prospects of a central bank digital currency (CBDC), 36% finding it appealing and 30% not. One in four say they would not use a digital Canadian dollar, with 63% who would still use cash if a digital Canadian dollar was introduced.

"The Future of Cash conference in Istanbul saw some big conversations about cash today and its future. The mood was more upbeat this year as transactional demand for cash has primarily rebounded from the lows of the pandemic, and the access to cash agenda has gathered pace in countries facing the reality of less cash."

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) proposed new rules to maintain reasonable access to cash for personal and business customers across the United Kingdom. Under the proposals, designated banks and building societies will need to assess gaps in access to cash. These assessments need to take into account local factors such as demographics and transport. Where firms identify gaps, they will need to act to address these needs, like delivering reasonable additional cash services to fill gaps, and ensuring they do not close cash facilities, including bank branches, until any additional cash services identified are available.

The U.S. House Financial Services Committee passed the Payment Choice Act that, if enacted, would require applicable retail businesses to accept cash for transactions of less than $2,000 and prohibit them from charging cash-paying customers a higher price relative to customers not paying with cash. Retail businesses would retain flexibility to accept payments through any other means. Exceptions are provided in the event that a retailer temporarily has insufficient cash on hand to make change, or experiences a systems failure that temporarily prevents it from processing cash payments. Enforcement of alleged violations would be by a civil action brought by any injured person in state or federal court.

"The use of cash for payments is not well measured. We view the value of cash withdrawn from ATMs, or as a share of all payments, as a more accurate and timely measure of cash use compared to the standard measure of currency in circulation, or as a ratio to GDP. These two measures are compared for 14 advanced and emerging market economies. When aggregated, the trend in cash use for payments is currently falling for half the world's population. Such a measure can help inform policy decisions regarding CBDC and regulatory decisions concerning access to and use of cash."