Understanding an Industry

All too often notifications arrive about a new study into an aspect of the cash industry, the cash cycle or payments.

The trouble is that if it is written by an industry-insider, the competitive value is so high that the document has to talk in bland generalisations. If written by a professional organisation outside of the industry, where has the data come from and how do you know if you can trust it?

Such is the joy of working with a product which is simultaneously important to individuals, businesses and governments in what they do and how they live, but which has to be secret, and secure, given its value and role.

Although a public good, owned by the state for the people, cash and the cash cycle is also deeply commercially competitive. At the same time, there are legitimate interests in understanding cash and the cash cycle both for insiders and outsiders.