Stay tuned with CashEssentials news ! - beyond payments
By subscribing, you accept our Privacy Policy.
×
×

Webinar – The Future of Cash – Beyond Corona Part I

This post is also available in: Spanish

Let’s Become Future Literate

According to UNESCO, “Futures literacy is a capability. It is the skill that allows people to better understand the role that the future plays in what they see and do. People can become more skilled at ‘using-the-future’, more ‘futures literate’, because of two facts. One is that the future does not yet exist, it can only be imagined. Two is that humans have the ability to imagine. As a result, humans are able to learn to imagine the future for different reasons and in different ways. Thereby becoming more ‘futures literate’.”

The panel identified 5 tensions that will drive the future of cash in the next decade. We cannot know how these tensions will precisely develop in the future, but we can imagine radically opposing outcomes and increase our understanding of what kinds of futures the different combinations of outcomes create, and what choices we can make.

5 key Tensions

The panel discussed in more detail how some of these tensions may develop and how this may impact future demand for cash. Some of the key points raised:

  • Covid has impacted consumer payment behaviour but future behaviour is unknown
  • Recession could lead to a shift to cash as a budget management tool
  • Demand for a trusted, secure and universal form of money
  • Consumers view cash as a public good
  • Cash in circulation likely to increase but transactional demand could continue to decline
  • Need to rethink the cash cycle to ensure access, acceptance and resilience
  • Policy options: regulation or subsidisation

A futures table for imagining radical futures

An example of a futures table was drafted. A futures table is a tool for imagining radical futures and exploring the largest uncertainties. A Futures table is a precisely defined framework about the future. It is a framework which contains the most important aspects of change. It is on purpose polarised to allow discussing meaningful alternative development directions. By showing them we can identify our own agency in creating a desired futures.

 

Futures Table

 

 

The recording of the webinar can be watched here and the presentation is available for download below.

Next Webinar on 9 June

The next webinar will be held on 9 June @ 14:00 CEST. It will aim at imaging radical future scenarios.