This conference once again brought together central bankers and the academic community of cash researchers. It covered a wide range of current topics with renowned experts discussing interesting aspects.

The information contained in the study is of interest to all market participants affected by the payment behaviour of private individuals, most notably retailers, credit institutions, card issuers and, last but not least, the Deutsche Bundesbank itself. Players wishing to foster more innovation in the field of payments need to offer a genuine advantage over established schemes and procedures and, in particular, to heed users’ perceived security needs.

Zeitzeugen (Living Witnesses) is an entertaining book that transports the reader back to various eras of numismatic history and boasts captivating images of historical coins. Over the course of thirty richly illustrated chapters, Zeitzeugen recounts episodes from various points in two-and-a-half thousand years of historical coinage.

The information contained in the study is of interest to all market participants affected by the payment behaviour of private individuals, most notably retailers, credit institutions, card issuers and, last but not least, the Deutsche Bundesbank itself. Players wishing to foster more innovation in the field of payments need to offer a genuine advantage over established schemes and procedures and, in particular, to heed users’ perceived security needs.

This study investigates the effects on consumer prices of rounding final total prices or individual prices in the retail sector. The empirical analysis based on around  70,000 sales receipts shows that, when the final total price is rounded commercially to the nearest whole 5 euro cent increment, virtually no effect on the price level can  be expected.

At the International Cash Conference in September 2014 papers on a variety of topics were presented and discussed. Costs and benefits of cash and cashless payment instruments, the role of cash in financial crises as well as the payment behavior were focussed. This conference volume contains the majority of the presentations held at the conference and other photographically impressions of the conference.

This paper analyses cash and cashless payment instruments in Germany. After a description of developments in a national and international context, we will compile a critical overview of iterature on cost calculations and on the importance of payments media for different countries.