Over the past few years, industry experts have predicted the end of physical branches and that customers would progressively move away from cash transactions. However, in an article that was published in 2012, McKinsley & Co. showed that the share of cash in all American retail payments was still nearly one-third. This has forced financial institutions to re-think their models to better predict the amount of cash they’ll need to accommodate their account holders.
Just when you thought the latest round of upgrades to your ATM fleet were finished along comes the next big idea - ATM Cash using a Smartphone. Several banks in the US and Australia, and some pretty big players in the ATM manufacturing and transaction processing space have been testing - and rolling out - the latest ATM cash withdrawal technology. So... will your smartphone one day replace your ATM card?
When most people hear about Bitcoin, whether for the first or the tenth time, they ask one simple question: “What is it?”
Like an automobile, Bitcoin is technically advanced, and it can appear complicated, depending on how much you want to know about it. But also like an automobile, it doesn’t require you to be a technical expert in order to use it—and for it to change the way you interact with the world.