Why the Cash Story Is More Complex Than the Headlines Suggest

Reading the Signals at Currency News

Cash is often discussed through competing narratives. In some markets, it is declining as an everyday payment method. In others, demand for banknotes continues to grow. Central banks are rethinking resilience, suppliers are managing full order books, and artificial intelligence is beginning to raise questions the industry has only started to address. For Astrid Mitchell, CEO of Currency News, these developments are not contradictions. They are signals from a global cash ecosystem that can only be understood by looking beyond one market, one technology, or one part of the industry.

“There is a tendency to look at one part of the picture and assume it represents the whole,” Astrid says. “But the reality is much more complex. The cash story depends on where you are, what problem you are trying to solve, and which part of the ecosystem you are looking at.”

That perspective has shaped Astrid’s work for more than two decades. Before joining Reconnaissance International, a business intelligence and consulting firm, in 2002, she spent more than 20 years in communications, marketing, and strategic development at De La Rue, OpSec, and Bundesdruckerei. That gave her an insider’s understanding of security printing, authentication, banknotes, and the way the industry communicates.

When Currency News launched in 2003, it filled a gap. The banknote world had central banks, suppliers, technical specialists, conferences, and regional conversations, but it lacked a regular publication that looked across the whole ecosystem. Currency News became Astrid’s way of following not only what was happening, but why it mattered.

“We were in the right place at the right time,” she says. “Today there is no shortage of information. In fact, there is probably too much. The challenge is understanding what really matters. That is where a publication like Currency News still has a role, because our job is not only to report individual developments, but to help make sense of how they connect.”

Looking Across the Whole Ecosystem

Currency News now sits alongside related publications and conferences covering coins, payments, authentication, and the future of cash. Through that broader platform, Astrid and her colleagues follow developments across banknote production, cash management, payments, security features, public communication, technology, and regional policy discussions.

That breadth matters in an industry that can still operate in silos – even though the topics are part of the same system.

“We talk to everybody,” Astrid says. “Central banks, printers, suppliers, cash management companies, and technology providers. If you only listen to one part of the industry, you can easily miss what is happening elsewhere.”

For Astrid, this wider view is especially important because much of the public discussion about cash is shaped by the experience of mature economies, where cash usage has declined for everyday transactions and digital payments have become deeply embedded in consumer behavior. That picture is real, but it is not universal.

Not One Cash Story, but Several

Astrid describes the global cash landscape as several different realities. In mature economies, including much of Europe, North America, Singapore, and Australia, central banks are increasingly focused on how to maintain cash as part of a resilient and inclusive payment system. The priorities are access, accessibility, acceptance, and affordability.

In transitional economies, digital payments may be expanding rapidly, but cash remains deeply embedded in daily life. Here, the focus is often on improving cash-cycle efficiency, strengthening forecasting, and integrating cash more closely with the wider payments landscape. In some countries, cash and payments departments are even being brought together within central banks.

In cash economies across parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the most urgent issues are often practical. How can enough cash reach a growing population? How can banknote quality be maintained? How can cash be distributed efficiently across large territories, informal economies, or regions with limited infrastructure?

“The needs are very different depending on where you are looking,” Astrid says. “In one market, the issue may be acceptance. In another, it may be forecasting, infrastructure, or clean-note policies. Western discussions about cash often dominate the conversation, but they represent only part of the world.”

That difference helps explain why apparently contradictory statements about cash can all be true. Cash can be declining in daily transactional use in one market while growing in circulation elsewhere. Digital payments can expand quickly while cash remains essential. A central bank can issue fewer notes for retail use and still regard cash as critical for resilience, inclusion, and public confidence.

For Astrid, the danger lies in turning one market’s experience into a global conclusion.

Reading Beyond Today’s Demand

The same caution applies to the current surge in demand for banknotes. Across the industry, production schedules are full, and many printing facilities have order books filled well into next year. Some central banks are also increasing their strategic reserves, holding larger inventories than they traditionally did before the pandemic and before the latest period of geopolitical uncertainty.

At first glance, this could be read as the beginning of a long-term boom. Astrid is more careful.

“I would describe it as a characteristic of the market at the moment rather than a long-term trend,” she says. “There is strong current demand, but the question is whether this is a temporary response to uncertainty or something more structural. Global events have changed how many central banks think about preparedness and resilience, but we should be careful not to assume that every short-term market condition tells us where the industry is heading.”

For suppliers, the current market creates opportunity. But Astrid believes the more important question is how the industry can help central banks manage demand over time, rather than simply respond to peaks when they occur.

“If we improve forecasting, we can help smooth the peaks and troughs instead of constantly reacting to them,” she says. “That benefits both central banks and suppliers. It moves the conversation from fulfilling orders to helping customers plan for a more uncertain environment.”

Forecasting returns repeatedly in Astrid’s view of the industry because it sits at the intersection of production planning, inventory, resilience, sustainability, cost, and the ability to maintain a reliable cash cycle. A full order book says something about the present. It does not explain what will happen next.

AI and the Signals the Industry May Be Missing

One topic that Astrid believes deserves far more attention is artificial intelligence. While many industries are already debating how AI will reshape operations, risk, and decision-making, she sees the currency industry as only beginning to engage with its implications.

“I don’t think we’re talking about AI nearly enough,” Astrid says. “It has the potential to become one of the biggest issues facing the industry, both because of the risks it creates and because of the tools it could give us. If the industry treats AI only as a technology issue, or only as a counterfeiting issue, we will miss the wider implications.”

Much of the immediate concern is around risk. AI-generated images can already create convincing but entirely fictional banknotes. False information can spread quickly online. As the technology improves, it could support new forms of counterfeiting, fraud, or misinformation that do not fit traditional assumptions about how threats emerge.

Yet focusing only on the risks would miss part of the story. AI could also help central banks and industry partners analyze data, improve forecasting, support quality control, and better understand how cash moves through increasingly complex payment ecosystems. In that sense, it is not simply a threat or a tool. It is another signal that the boundaries around the cash cycle are changing.

Another example is prop or movie money. Unlike traditional counterfeits, these notes are often sold as film props or novelty items, sometimes through online marketplaces and sometimes in ways that do not fit neatly within existing anti-counterfeiting frameworks. As quality improves and online distribution expands, the response requires more than better security features. It also requires legislation, enforcement, and cooperation across the wider system.

“There are threats now that sit outside the traditional banknote security conversation,” Astrid says. “That means the industry has to think more broadly about enforcement, online distribution, public awareness, and the legal frameworks around what is being sold.”

Careful Does Not Mean Static

The currency industry is often described as conservative, and Astrid does not reject that description entirely. Banknotes are unusual products. They must work across whole populations, in different environments, without a user manual. They need to be secure, recognizable, durable, accessible, and trusted. That naturally creates a measured approach to risk.

But measured does not mean static.

“Banknotes are not ordinary consumer products,” Astrid says. “They must work for entire populations without a user manual. That makes the industry careful. But careful does not mean nothing is changing. It often means that change happens in a different rhythm from other industries.”

Over the past two decades, she has seen communication improve significantly. Central banks are more active in explaining new banknotes to the public, often with support from their suppliers. Public consultation is increasingly part of new series development, and design has become more visible.

Many of these shifts do not arrive as sudden disruptions. They build gradually across conferences, procurement decisions, design choices, public education campaigns, technology pilots, and policy discussions. That can make them easy to overlook until they become part of the industry’s new normal.

Connecting the Signals

Asked what will shape the banknote industry conversation over the next few years, Astrid returns to three themes. The first is whether today’s strong demand reflects a temporary response to uncertainty or a more durable shift in how central banks think about resilience, preparedness, and strategic reserves. The second is artificial intelligence, both as a source of new threats and as a tool that could improve forecasting, analysis, and decision-making across the cash cycle. The third is the continued evolution of the cash cycle itself, where resilience, efficiency, access, acceptance, clean-note policies, and public confidence are becoming increasingly connected.

None of these can be effectively explored and understood by looking at a single country, technology, or organization. That is why Astrid keeps returning to the value of perspective. The industry does not lack information. It lacks time, space, and shared frameworks for understanding which developments matter most.

“There are signals everywhere,” she says. “The challenge isn’t collecting them – it is understanding how they fit together. That requires looking beyond one market, one product, or one technology and asking what each development says about the system as a whole.”