From the category archives:

Of Interest

Cash Makes A Comeback

03.11.2010
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For all the stories of the cashless society, Web 2.0 currency revolutions, etc. cash might be making a quiet comeback as the preferred payment method for many of us. In a recent article published in American Banker, the author postulates that recent bank bailouts might be the driver for consumers increased use of cash.

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It Just Feels Funny

03.05.2010
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Having been involved in the currency handling business for many years and having experience in many countries means that I have had the opportunity to handle many different kinds of “paper” money. I placed the word paper in parentheses for a reason, because in today’s world not all currency is made of paper. Australia started the trend away from paper/cotton based currency a few years ago. They were followed by Mexico and a handful of other countries. Now Canada is joining the ranks.

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The Cost of Cash

02.24.2010
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Recently an associate sent me an article regarding the relative “cost” of different retail payment media – credit cards, debit cards and cash. While the article (reprinted below) makes a convincing argument for cash discounts, it neglects to understand or incorporate the real cost of cash in society. I am sure those of you reading this post will agree with me that there are hidden costs of cash that most of society never sees or thinks about. So, what is the cost of cash?

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De La Rue Teams with Cummins Allison

02.11.2010

Cummins-Allison, Mt. Prospect, Illinois, USA and De La Rue, Basingstoke, UK, today announced a strategic partnership to sell De La Rue high speed currency sorters and Enterprise Cash Management software solutions in the North American region through Cummins-Allison’s extensive nationwide distribution and service network.

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Burroughs is Back!

02.09.2010
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PLYMOUTH, Mich. – Marlin Equity Partners (“Marlin”) is pleased to announce that it has acquired the check and cash automation equipment and related U.S. maintenance, printer and direct supply business of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: UIS) and has subsequently formed a new company, Burroughs Payment Systems, Inc.

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Is Cash Becoming Obsolete?

01.20.2010
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I have always been a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the prevalence of cash as the favoured payment medium for most common “everyday” transactions. It is simple, inexpensive and anonymous. For these reasons and others I have always maintained that cash will remain king at least through my lifetime. However, the presenter of this speech Mr. Douglas Rushkoff makes some very interesting observations about the origins of cash…

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Mobile Transfers – Will They Live Up to the Hype?

01.15.2010
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On January 6, American Banker published an article entitled Mobile Transfers Taking Aim at Cash Payments. I suppose that one could start a “cash threat” list by adding mobile P2P transfers to contactless payments. P2P transfers are an extremely useful tool and are already in place in much of the world – and not just via PayPal. There are two primary issues to be worked out. The first is determining which accounts to use to move money. The second issue is pricing. There has been a lot of talk about the tolerance of consumers to pay for P2P transfers. I believe that this is wishful thinking.

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Parting Thought on the FDIC Study….and 2009

12.21.2009

So you’ve heard me rail on about the unbanked and underbanked for the last couple of weeks and I’m not quite ready to let it go. In addition to outlining the results of the FDIC study, I’d also like to give one final thought on what we as banks do about it.

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The Underbanked – Are we making cross-selling efforts or are they just not working?

12.14.2009
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The FDIC study – take two. In my last post, I focused on the unbanked and some misconceptions about that group. Today I’d like to focus on the underbanked — those households that have a deposit account but rely on non-bank financial services. These are households that are already bank customers but are also using alternative financial services (AFS). The FDIC study provides great insight into what those AFS products are – good information for a bank that’s looking to improve cross-sales to existing clients.

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The FDIC’s New Study on the Un- and Under-banked – Will It Help or Hurt?

12.09.2009
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Last Wednesday, the FDIC released the results of the National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. The survey found that over 1 in 4 US households are unbanked or underbanked. There have always been outreach efforts by some banks to bring the unbanked into the fold. But as I’ve included unbanked information in my presentations on self-service, I’ve had some comments that these groups are not “good” bank clients so banks don’t see any need to reach out.

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Cash is Back – At Least This Year

12.04.2009

The New York Times recently published an article indicating that the percentage of people planning to use cash for holiday shopping in 2009 is up 9.2% over 2008 and this isn’t the first time we’ve heard that cash has made a comeback in 2009. But will it last? Is this a permanent philosophical and practical change? Or is cash actually experiencing death throes as debit cards, prepaid cards and contactless payments continue their steady rise?

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BAI Retail Delivery Show – an exhibitor’s perspective

11.12.2009

The subject of this post is a little misleading. For the record I want to state officially that I am neither an exhibitor myself nor do I own a company that exhibits at this event. I work for a company that exhibits at this event and as a result of my employment I have found myself attending the 2008 and 2009 events in Orlando and Boston respectively.

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Retail Currency Management – Short-term solution, long-term gain

10.23.2009
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Financial institutions have long tracked the amount of currency they hold in cash vaults, at branches, and in ATMs. However, retail merchants have not been able to manage currency as closely as banks. Instead of simply moving cash internally as needed, as banks do, retailers have had to move cash to and from the banks daily to get credit, gain interest for deposits, and maintain the necessary mix of currency denominations. And they have either had to pay costly armored carrier fees or risk the safety of employees carrying large amounts of cash between the stores and the banks.

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Who Will Speak Up for Cash?

10.21.2009
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The past year or so has been by and large a good one for the currency industry. The economic meltdown has led to increased demand for cash, while the banks and financial institutions, preoccupied with rather more weighty issues than pushing people toward payment instruments that benefit them, have gone quiet on the subject.

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The 2009 Fiserv Cash & Logistics Connect Forum – Another Stellar Roundup

10.14.2009
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Last week, I had the pleasure of speaking at Fiserv’s Cash & Logistics Connect Forum in Boston. While I certainly liked speaking on the topic of cash management in a year when there have been so many interesting changes (and so much more cash in circulation!), I mostly enjoyed meeting so many people who live and breathe currency management on a daily basis.

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The Cashless Branch (continued) – Is it possible to be cashless and still make customers happy?

10.07.2009
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So how can a bank transform itself to a cashless branch without scaring away the customers that still want and need to come to the branch? Any hardware manufacturer will be happy to tell you how as it relates to the layout and functionality. But the key question is how to do it in such a way that the branch is more profitable and the customers are not alienated.

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if the recession is over can we go back to normal?

10.01.2009

I have heard and seen editorials in the past few weeks warning of the complacency that comes with narrowly escaping an economic depression. These same editorialists are asking the same questions – mostly of our leaders – why are they not warning us of not heeding the lessons we apparently just learned. If this recession was so quick to fix (I said quick, not inexpensive), then why can’t we just continue with our cavalier ways. If it happens again the governments and central banks will just bail us out again, right?

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The Cashless Branch – Scaring the Customers or Just the Next Step?

09.29.2009

If you haven’t considered the cashless branch before, you may be asking “Why?”, quickly followed by “How?” I could do entire presentations and research notes on this topic, so I’m probably not going to do these questions justice here. But let me just hit on some highlights on the “Why” today and the “How” in my next post.

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Counting On Currency welcomes a new contributor

09.02.2009

The height of confirmation that one is doing something of meaning for a community (to me at least) is when others want to voluntarily join in to help make it even better. This small contribution to the voice of the currency community has been so confirmed – a second time! First it needs to be [...]

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defining and regulating systemically important institutions

08.12.2009

As readers will know I have noted with interest the gestation of proposed financial institution regulatory and policy changes. First was the question of Who would be made responsible; would it be just one government department?; more than one?; would non-government bodies be involved? After that question was settled we moved on to What were they going to do, to Whom and How? These are the threatening three questions that (in my humble opinion) still cause affected professionals to lose much sleep.

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authenticating currency with numbers

08.07.2009

In a past life I worked for one of the premier currency sorter manufacturers, which is primarily where I cut my teeth in this business. One of the things that impressed me then (and still does now) is the technology that goes into authenticating currency. One technology in particular that I saw as revolutionary was the ability to read the serial number of a note as it flew down a track on a sorter at something like 30 feet per second. The system not only reads the serial number but can compare it to a known database of “authentic” notes and “tracked” notes (the latter having been identified as used in criminal activity).

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bidding for my bucks

07.24.2009

Imagine my surprise (and delight at the timely irony) when I discovered the business model that is unfolding as a type of eBay for cash. In this scenario, you register an account with the likes of Licuro.com, Moneyaisle.com or Spaarbod.nl (brush up on your dutch before visiting that last site!) and put your cash up for auction.

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banking on the basics with SmartyPig

07.15.2009

There are few people in the developed world who have not been affected in some way by the economic meltdown that started in ernest last year. One of the fundamental shifts that I see occurring is the real skepticism we now approach our financial services with.

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reduce, reuse and recycle!

07.07.2009

We have all heard the litany of requests from governments, eco-agencies and individuals as they call for the mobilization of the individual to assist in making the planet a healthier place to live. So how does this apply to the currency management supply chain? Interesting question – and one that (surprisingly) has an answer.

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banks are making the move to SaaS

06.23.2009

More and more financial institutions are making the move to utilizing Software as a Service (SaaS) instead of incurring the expense and required internal effort to setup and maintain in-house software solutions. Let me point out that SaaS applications are not about to replace core banking systems anytime soon. However when it comes to managing discretionary services that are free of risk when it comes to identifying personal information (see previous post) financial institutions both large and small are now seriously considering such applications.

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to tweet or not to tweet?

06.04.2009

I am at the point of screaming UNCLE! I can not believe the number of friends and associates who, once they discover I have a blog, want to know if I use Twitter. Many of them can’t even begin to describe what Twitter is, beyond something their children use. Equally I can not ignore the overwhelming advice I receive in blog related “help” publications to integrate with Twitter.

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I trust my bank – then again, maybe I don’t

05.29.2009

Having made a career in sales and marketing the biggest single competitive advantage I have over the sales people with whom I compete is my trustworthiness and my credibility. Oh, there are other attributes that I believe make me effective in my career, but trust is by far the most important. I work very hard to maintain the trust and confidence of my customers and this hard work has served me well by allowing me to continue in this field where many others have withered.

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a song for our times…

05.17.2009

Sometimes you stumble across something so touching or moving or inspirational that you have to pass it along to your neighbor… in this case it came to me from my neighbor… in this case, it is all three – touching, moving and inspirational

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a blast from my blogging past -when is a banknote the same as a tire?

05.11.2009

And the answer is…? When a cash vault is the same as an auto manufacturing plant! OK, Henny Youngman I’m not, but the way I see it is that there is a growing quiet revolution going on in the global cash vault industry. Paper, pencils, note and coin counters spreadsheets, manual GL’s , etc. are being replaced by increasingly complex and pervasive vault management software applications, up-stream and down-stream data integrations, intelligent and multi functional high and mid-speed note and coin sorters and discriminators, auto-generated reporting and datafile transfers and so on.

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making change – two dollars, twenty pesos, 300 renminbi … and swine flu?

05.06.2009

“I got it from my wallet?” – or at least what was in it. According to current research there is some possibility, within a relatively short period of time, that a flu virus could be passed from an infected person to a healthy one via common cash/currency. With the current alerts from the World Health Organization and the commonality of international travel it is no wonder that we have a growing fear that perhaps our money could make us sick.

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