De La Rue plc is the world the world’s largest designer and commercial printer of banknotes. De La Rue designs, manufactures and delivers banknotes, banknote substrates and security features to customers in a world where currency will continue to be a key part of the developing payments eco-system.
Even after losing the passport contact to Thales, how does a company that prints money do so badly?
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Even the core banknote business is being gutted out as fewer are being required.
Even though we are moving into an increasingly cashless society, the value of banknotes in circulation is still growing. The transition to plastic banknotes means that they last longer, but they should also be higher margin products.
They make a lot of money from overseas nations and are facing competition and a lack of demand. Less cash being used means it’s wears out more slowly.
Most countries are still increasing their cash supply by around 5% per year.
It’s a very Northern European view that cash is dying. You’d not be saying that if you lived in Germany or Japan for example.
Even in Germany it’s dying, albeit way more slowly due to a historical cash fetish. But the ratio of card transactions is constantly increasing and apple/google pay are accepted in many places since last year.
So this is definitely a technological shift that will happen everywhere. Maybe slower in some countries, but it is not just a northern european fad.
Small transactions below 20€ have barely changed - still around 90% in cash. And still 25% of purchases over 500€ are in cash, unchanged from 2014.
Sparkasse and Commerzbank, two of the biggest bank account providers, only introduced Apple Pay a few weeks ago. And with the former, you need to pay to use it.
That might be the case (even though I doubt these numbers), but you are talking about singular events. The trend is clear and consistent over the last decade. Slow but steady.
I personally use google pay in Germany in many supermarkets.
The numbers came from the Bundesbank.