Transforming the cash cycle with a "simple box"

Standardization has the potential to transform industries and, in the process, many aspects of our lives.

Take the humble shipping container. Since it was conceived by a visionary US trucking company owner in the mid-1950s as a standard, reusable, and secure way of transporting all manner of goods, the logistics sector has become a model for efficiency. It’s a transformation that we have all benefited from in terms of lower prices, speedier deliveries, and access to markets that would have been unimaginable in earlier eras. Today, about 250 million of these standardized boxes are in motion around the world each year.¹

It’s also an example that is an inspiration for many other industries – from SIM cards and software containers in technology to prefabricated modules in construction.

A parallel revolution now looks set to transform the cash industry, with another standardized box at its heart and benefits that will be seen across the whole cash cycle. As always with industry standards, though, such gains will only flow with the right blend of innovation, leadership, and industry-wide collaboration. The good news is that for the cash industry, the market dynamics seem aligned for that to succeed.

The dynamics of the modern cash cycle

In recent years, central banks, commercial banks, and cash-in-transit (CIT) companies have all faced a number of cash-handling challenges, including fast-changing and unpredictable levels of demand for banknotes, rising costs of processing cash, and pressures to make the cash cycle more sustainable at every possible point.

These challenges are being addressed on several fronts: 

• through investment in higher levels of automation
• by creating much better visibility into the cash cycle
• by establishing greater resilience and responsiveness across the cash supply chain
• and with the adoption of greener approaches and product materials.

That end-to-end scrutiny of the cash cycle has already inspired a wave of innovations – from the Green Banknote Inititiative to the development of a new generation of highly optimized cash processing systems. But alongside these, there has been a broad acceptance that one particular development would go a long way to support the new world of cash: the standardization of the way cash is handled, stacked, stored, and transported. 

Today at several key points in the cycle, manual and wasteful processes prevail – with significant consequences. “Hands-on cash” processes – for example, when notes are fed into counting machines or boxed up for transportation – represent challenges to cash security. The packing and repacking of notes in different types of boxes, bags, cartons, and containers contributes to inefficiency and a lack of visibility throughout the cycle. And the wrapping of bundles of notes in single-use plastic may be convenient, but it is far from environmentally sound.

Standardization as a game-changer

That’s where the creation of a standardized box for transporting cash, supported by an increasingly digitalized ecosystem, has the potential to play a revolutionary role – just as a “simple box” did in the logistics sector.

As an industry leader, G+D has been working with an array of cash cycle players and customers to bring the benefits of standardization to the cash cycle. Its NotaTray^® Ecosystem is a vision for industry-wide standardization centered on an ergonomic banknote tray. Made from bio-based and recycled materials, NotaTrays are designed to streamline the professional handling of cash by enabling high levels of operational efficiency and visibility across banknote loading, filling, and packaging systems by seamlessly integrating with cash cycle systems and processes.

For cash cycle players, the NotaTray^® Ecosystem can deliver a set of transformational benefits:

• High levels of sustainability across the entire cash-handling cycle, with a shift from the packaging of banknotes to the holding of loose banknotes in reusable, interchangeable, robust trays.
• Processing cash more efficiently by enabling the automation of loading, filling, and packing
• Visibility into the entire cash cycle as a result of every tray having a digital twin that can be tracked from a central console, showing the position and contents of each tray
• Tightened physical security, as a result of reduced hands-on-cash and enhanced traceability
• Eased pressures on scare resources, with NotaTray^®-facilitated automation freeing up operations staff and infrastructure.

Individually, central banks, commercial banks, and CITs can all reap these benefits. But with wider adoption of the NotaTray^® Ecosystem is likely to create a “multiplier effect”: the more collaboration across the cash cycle, the steeper the contribution to the overall efficiency and sustainability gains.

The potential is nothing short of industry transformation, says Wolfgang Kneilmann, Head of Currency Management Solutions at G+D. “The cash industry needs a holistic approach and integrated solution that addresses the key criteria for all participants in the cash cycle,” he says. “We need a seamless interaction of all components, taking a transformative step toward handling our resources in a smarter way.”

The NotaTray^® Ecosystem in action

The experience of adopters of the NotaTray^® Ecosystem certainly demonstrates those broad benefits: 

MNB x NotaTray^®: Helping Hungary’s central bank achieve a leaner, more secure, and sustainable cash processing cycle 

Hungary’s central bank, the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB), has been a long-term user of high-speed processing machines from G+D. But with a view to making cash as sustainable, secure, resilient, and efficient as possible, in 2022 it decided to integrate G+D’s NotaTray^® Ecosystem into its existing automation process, using standardized NotaTrays for inbound deliveries of loose banknotes by commercial cash cycle partners and their subsequent transport, storage, and processing. 

From an environmental perspective alone, the impact was significant. As reusable containers for automatically loading loose banknotes into – and out of – cash processing machines, NotaTrays can help eliminate the need for banderole paper or plastic wrapping. That means banknotes can be processed without the need to unpack and prepare them, therefore increasing efficiency as well as security.

Until recently at MNB, banknotes were packed in various boxes and containers, including those made from single-use packaging material, which were then manually unpacked by employees. With up to 270,000 bundles processed each year by MNB – half of which are unfit banknotes – this method was not only time-consuming and inefficient, but it also posed security concerns, not to mention the substantial waste generated daily. By replacing single-use packaging with NotaTray^® containers, the NotaTray^® Ecosystem is helping MNB reach its sustainability goals as well as increasing efficiency and enhancing security by reducing operational risk.

In order to reap those benefits, however, it was essential for MNB to gain the support of wider cash cycle stakeholders, such as commercial banks and cash-in-transit providers. So, to ease the transition away from bundled banknotes, the MNB is providing its partners with free NotaTrays and as much support as they need.

NatWest x NotaTray^®: Facilitating the automation of high­speed processing and enhanced sustainability

With a goal of significantly increasing banknote processing efficiency through automation, the UK’s National Westminster Bank (NatWest) first embraced standardized NotaTrays back in 2017 when it upgraded its high-end banknote processing system to G+D’s BPS^® M5 systems, complete with NotaTray^® loading modules. 

As well as relieving operators from repetitive manual tasks, the 20-pocket BPS^® M5, when combined with NotaTray^®, also increased the speed of processing by 10%, allowing NatWest to attain an effective average throughput of up to 100,000 banknotes per hour for each BPS^® M5 – a major value-add in a cash center that is dealing with mixed banknote qualities. Moreover, reusable NotaTrays have also helped raise sustainability levels as a result of a significant reduction of plastic waste, while fewer hands-on-cash points has cut the number of discrepancies. 

One important function of that NotaTray^® Ecosystem is to offload pressure from operators when processing at high speeds. The NotaTray^® loading module can automatically keep the machine permanently loaded to achieve maximum throughput, without the operators having to be constantly on hand to manually load.

NotaTray^® also plays an important role in the wider cash cycle. Together NatWest and CIT partner LOOMIS UK are advancing the cash cycle by no longer transporting cash in single-­use plastic security bags, but rather in NotaTrays that can be continually recirculated.

GSA/Loomis x NotaTray^®: Turning the idea of “cash processing without manual intervention” into reality

GSA Geldservice, Austria’s leading cash management company, and LOOMIS Austria, a specialist in cash handling, joined forces to bring greater efficiency to their joint cash processing activities through NotaTray^®-facilitated automation. Since 2018, LOOMIS has been delivering the deposits it collects to GSA in sealed NotaTrays, replacing the bundles of banknotes that were previously packed and shipped – thereby eliminating the unpacking and preparation processes.

By making banknotes directly available for automated processing via standard NotaTrays, GSA and LOOMIS can attain higher levels efficiency, security, and sustainability. For both companies, the tray creates the necessary standardization to make the idea of cash processing without manual intervention a reality. Banknotes are no longer unpacked, prepared for processing, and manually inserted into the G+D BPS^® system, but directly made available via the NotaTray^® for automated processing. The result of what may seem like a small change at first glance: greater efficiency, security, and sustainability. 

As those case studies highlight, the adoption of a standardized container for banknotes can have a profound effect on the cash cycle. And, with suitable collaboration between partners, its widespread adoption could prove just as much a game-changer in the cash industry as the shipping container was in logistics.

Wolfgang Kneilmann believes the cash industry is ready for such change to “a global, holistic, and customizable solution that is able to set new standards by enhancing efficiency, sustainability, and resilience for all stakeholders – at every step of the cash cycle.”