Hybridised Systems – The Future of Banknotes?

At the recent Digital Document Security Online conference, held at the end of March, Sina Gebrodt, a final-year student at the Design Academy Eindhoven, reported on the project that she and Madison Bucher, a user-experience designer, had undertaken on the future of banknotes. This project was sponsored by Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (K&B).

Gebrodt and Bucher set out to establish whether banknotes have a future and, if so, what will be required of them. They conducted interviews with 47 people in their twenties at the Pasadena ArtCenter College of Design (California), identifying two key ‘pain points’ for this group: these are the fear of losing cash or being robbed of it, and the stress of using ATMs. They concluded that if these pain points could be overcome, this generation would be more inclined to continue to use banknotes.