Central Banks and Cash Round-Up

In this periodic series of articles covering cash information in central bank annual reports, we turn out attention this month to Canada, the ECCB, India, Ireland, and Spain.

Bank of Canada (BoC)

Payment surveys: the BoC’s Methods of Payment Survey 2022 showed that many Canadians still use cash and that 80% of consumers have no plans to go cashless. Meanwhile, cash acceptance remains almost universal across businesses in Canada. The 2023 Merchant Acceptance Survey results revealed that 96% of small and medium-sized businesses accept cash.

Counterfeiting: the BoC conducts the Bank Note Confidence Survey twice a year to assess public confidence in the authenticity of banknotes. In 2023, roughly 96% of Canadians expressed confidence that the banknotes they use are real. This aligns with a low counterfeiting rate of 7 parts per million (ppm) – well below the BoC’s benchmark of 30 ppm.

Circulation: banknotes in circulation represented approximately 37% (29% as of 31 December 2022) of the BoC’s total liabilities. The number of banknotes (roughly 3 billion) in circulation remained almost unchanged from their level at the end of 2022.