News in Brief

Coin Shortages Hit Chile

The Central Bank of Chile is urging citizens to ferret out any spare change they may have lying around amid a national shortage of coins. In a series of recent Twitter posts, the central bank warned that ‘COVID-19 had affected the circulation of cash’ and hurt small retail vendors. Employing the hashtag #usatusmonedas (‘use your coins’), officials pressed Chileans to spend coins or take them to banks.

Not unlike the US Federal Reserve, and its Coin Task Force, the Bank has created a working group, involving stakeholders from banking and commerce, with the aim of increasing the circulation of coins in the country.

According to the Bank, the circulation of coins has been affected by the pandemic, in particular the closure of commerce and services.

The Bank is urging people to use coins when making cash payments. People who have large volumes of coins are advised to take them to commercial banks that can exchange or deposit them, use the coin recycling machines that have been installed in and around Santiago, or deposit them at the Bank itself.

NCR Takeover of Cardtronics Approved

The final obstacle to NCR’s takeover of Cardtronics, in a deal worth $2.5 billion, has now been removed with receipt of the approval of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.

NCR has bought Cardtronics as part of its strategy to create an end-to-end service strategy. Cardtronics runs over 285,000 ATMs across ten countries in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Africa. NCR provides point-of-sale software to the retail and hospitality sectors and multi-vendor ATM software. It writes software, makes hardware and provides services to run ATMs from back-office to the front-end for customers.

Glory Continues Fintech Investments

Cash handling technology specialist Glory is to become a cornerstone investor in OneBanks, a UK start-up which has developed a low-cost pop-up kiosk which could replace bank branches in towns and communities where conventional bank branches have all but disappeared.

OneBanks is promising to provide bank-agnostic in-branch services – such as cash withdrawals, deposits, payments, and face-to-face support – for people and SMEs in communities abandoned by traditional bricks and mortar bank outlets.

Glory has also announced a strategic partnership with the payments platform provider Paysafe to improve access to the digital economy for consumers with limited access to mainstream electronic payments.

By bringing together Glory’s cash automation solutions with PaySafe’s e-cash card (paysafecard), retailers can further enhance their position at the centre of the new cash cycle, as well as drive more in-store footfall such as e-wallet top-up and cash payment for utility bills, said the company.

Under the agreement, Glory will sell its majority interest (52%) in the German company viafintech, which it acquired in early 2020, to Paysafe for an undisclosed sum. Viafinetch operates under the brands Barzahlen and viacash, offering an app-based solution that enables people to use their smartphones to pay bills in cash, as well as deposit and withdraw cash.

Part of Glory’s ‘Long-term Vision 2028’ includes developing new approaches to cash distribution. Other recent fintech activities include a stake in SoCash, the Singaporean virtual ATM company in 2019, and Acrelec Group, which provides responsive self-service solutions for fast food outlets, last year.

Bank of Ghana Teams with G+D on CBDC Pilot

The Bank of Ghana’s e-Cedi project is about to enter its pilot phase and it has chosen Giesecke+Devrient (G+D) to supply the underlying technology and to develop the solution which will be tested by banks, payment service providers, merchants, the public and other relevant stakeholders.

The e-Cedi is intended to circulate alongside cash, acting as a digital alternative. The solution aims to allow people to make payments without a bank account, contract, or smartphone.

The project has been planned in three phases: design, implementation and pilot. In the design phase, all framework parameters for the CBDC pilot will be specified and defined. In the second phase G+D will amend its CBDC solution to meet these requirements.

Finally, the pilot will explore the effectiveness of different payment routes such as apps and smart cards, with a group of users chosen to represent a diverse set of demographics and socio-economic backgrounds. This will allow the user’s experience to be evaluated alongside the IT security of the infrastructure, the impact of the project on monetary policy and payment system, and the legal implications.

KURZ Goes Green

KURZ is well-advanced with plans to cover the energy needs of its plant at Sulzbach-Rosenberg in Germany, where its high security foils based on its KINEGRAM® technology are manufactured, with the installation of an open-air photovoltaic system on a 14.5 hectare site.

The project was first announced two years ago. When complete, the installation will save KURZ about 6,000 tons of CO2 per year, bringing it closer to its sustainability goal of reducing energy-related CO2 emissions by least 20% by 2024.

According to the company, its electricity consumption is considerable, and growing. So the installation will not only help it meet its sustainability goals, but will reduce its energy costs, helping to make it more competitive.

The project is being undertaken with the Münch Energie corporation in Bavaria, one of Germany’s largest local energy providers.

The new facility is being sown with wild grasses and flowers, providing a haven for wildlife. Locally-generated electricity will not be fed into the grid like in conventional systems, but used on site in Kurz production, connecting directly the facility.

© KURZ.