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Pieter Steyn from SBV, South Africa's bank-owned cash management utility, discusses the challenges for 2019 and the priorities for 2020.

According to consumer Association, Which? the closure of ATMs have saved UK banks £120 million in ATM interchange fees and cost consumers £104 million in surcharging.

During the last decade, money has experienced a huge wave of globalisation, mirroring the overall globalisation of the economy. But as protectionism is on the rise around the globe, will the payments industry be impacted?

Despite swelling numbers of digital transactions, cash retains a large slice of the payment mix. Banks are being assigned the role of stewards for cash distribution. But this requires a debate as to what cash services banks and other stakeholders render to the public and at what cost.

CashEssentials will be holding a one-day seminar entitled ‘Understanding the Costs of Payments’ in Madrid on the 20th of April 2020. The seminar will bring together economists, researchers, academics and payment experts.

Visa will pay shops to offer cashback in rural locations in the United Kingdom.

Financial inclusion programmes play an increasingly important part in international development but two researchers find that the effects on economic poverty are small and inconsistent.

The four major Belgian banks will follow the example of Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands and will pool their ATM networks under a single white label brand.

As bushfires devastate the south-east of Australia, many towns are suffering power, internet or phone outages. For many, cash is the only way to pay for water, food and emergency supplies.

In the latest move to promote digital payments, the Indian tax authority has announced that from February 2020, retailers with annual sales exceeding Rs 50 million ($700,800) will be fined Rs 5,000 ($70) per day if they fail to provide solutions for the acceptance of digital payments.

Speaking at Slush, a Finnish student-driven technology event, Alex Gladstein Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation makes a strong case for financial privacy. The lack of options in terms of transaction methods opens the door to exploitation by authoritarian regimes and surveillance capitalism.

The CFA Franc was established in 1945 and is used in two African monetary unions, one in Western Africa and the other in Central Africa. The West African CFA Franc will be replaced by the Eco in 2020.