The Conference Scene for 2022 – Back in Business at Last

Optimism towards the end of last year that the pandemic was running its course, and that things would start returning to normal, have been frustrated by the emergence of the Omicron variant of COVID. But while some events have been thwarted, others are going ahead as planned (or rather, replanned – several times in some cases).

Then first casualty of Omicron is the World Money Fair, which has been cancelled for the second year in a row to be replaced by an online version. The dates for this have been moved – to 23-28 February.

The Technical Forum normally forms part of the World Money Fair. Last year it, too, went online, with a series of four webinars running over the course of four months. This year, it will be holding two sessions during the World Money Fair, on 23 and 24 February.

The Mint Directors Conference (MDC), originally scheduled for South Africa in 2020, has been postponed until October 2023, when it will be hosted by the Royal Canadian Mint and held in Ottawa. The South African Mint-hosted event in Cape Town will take place in November 2024.

In the meantime, the dates have now been finalised for MDC Online, an all-virtual event which will take place 24-25 May.

The postponement or cancellation of events, and/or their move online, is not universal, however, and some notable in-person conferences are still scheduled to go ahead this year.

First is the Banknote & Currency Conference, a major industry event, that is taking place 21-24 February in Washington DC. It will be followed on 25 February by the inaugural Digital Currency Conference.

High Security Printing (HSP) Latin America will be taking place 14-16 March in Mexico City. It will be followed by HSP EMEA, in Tallinn, Estonia, from 13-15 June, and then HSP Asia in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from 4-6 December.

Intergraf’s Currency+Identity conference will go ahead in Lyon, France from 6-8 April.

Hard on its heels is Optical & Digital Document Security, the technical conference for the cash and ID sectors, from 11-13 April in Vienna.

The International Currency Association’s Global Currency Forum will take place 2-5 May in Barcelona.

All three annual Cash Cycle Seminars (ICCOS) are due to go ahead in-person – Europe in Istanbul from 31 May-2 June, Asia in Manila from 6-7 September and the Americas in San Diego from 14-16 November.

September will be a particularly busy month. The Future of Cash is scheduled to be held 14-15 September in Madrid, and the Coin Conference, which normally takes place every second year will take place in Amsterdam at the end of the month. The World Banknote Summit will also be held that week, in Antwerp.

In October, meanwhile, the Silk Road Conference takes place in Kazakhstan from 3-5 October, and the 6th IBDC (International Banknote Designers Conference) in Dubrovnik from 24-27 October.

Undoubtedly there will be more, including a new event – The Sustainability Conference: Cash & Payments – which is provisionally scheduled to take place 2-3 November.

So it will be a busy year, assuming that COVID doesn’t find a new way to bring travel and meetings to a grinding halt again. We very much look forward to seeing you again at these events.