It is a large delegation which will make the trip, Friday to Pessac (Gironde), not for the arrival of King Charles III who must land at the neighboring Bordeaux-Mérignac airport around 1 p.m., but for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Monnaie de Paris site. For the occasion, all 460 employees of the public establishment will all meet in Pessac, where 175 people work daily, responsible for minting euros for France, as well as part of the currency of foreign countries.
20 minutes interviewed in advance the CEO of Monnaie de Paris, Marc Schwartz, who discusses the projects for the Pessac site, and takes stock of the future of cash payment, with the rise of contactless .
The Monnaie de Paris site in Pessac celebrates its 50th anniversary on Friday. Half a century after its creation, what is the factory’s activity?
The Pessac factory is still very active. The Paris Mint mints around three million collector’s coins each year, our Paris site being focused on gold collector’s coins, and that of Pessac towards silver collector’s coins. Pessac also manufactures souvenir medals found on tourist and heritage sites. Last year we minted five million of these medals in Pessac. But the Pessac factory is above all the one, and the only one, which mints current currency. Last year we minted 1.1 billion coins, and we are expected to exceed 1.3 billion this year. This represents half of the euro going to France, the other half being parts for export. In total, this factory minted some 57 billion coins [francs, euros, et monnaie étrangère] since she entered service on September 3, 1973.
Are you also going to diversify, since you are embarking on real estate projects?
Our project called “Campus de la Monnaie” will make it possible to develop part of our unoccupied land today. This campus is intended to accommodate start-ups, innovative companies, research laboratories, industrial activity, and offices, by 2027. We work, for example, in conjunction with Unitec, the Bordeaux incubator Metropolis. The surface area, ultimately, could reach 45,000 m2. The studies have been launched and we have carried out a preliminary study with the architect Dominique Perrault to design the overall structure of the project, which will have a very beautiful architectural signature. The place, designed by the Bordeaux firm Salier-Courtois-Lajus, students of Le Corbusier, already has a very marked architectural imprint.
Which countries does the Pessac site mint the currency of?
In Europe, major countries have their own strike capacity, but this is not the case for all countries. We export to the principality of Monaco, Andorra, Malta, etc. Outside Europe, we mint the currencies of a certain number of African countries, the Middle East and Latin America, such as Costa Rica. Since the factory came into operation, we have minted the currency of around sixty countries, representing 17 billion foreign coins.
How do you secure a site like this?
The site is very secure, obviously. There are many devices, such as a scan that measures the weight of metal you have on you, and which should not differ between your entry and your exit.
We no longer mint money today like we did fifty years ago, how has the site evolved?
We remain at the forefront of technology. Among our new equipment, we have received, for example, a high-capacity laser for engraving corners, a personalization line equipped with a robot, numerically controlled machining machines… And we have been working for several months with artificial intelligence to the creation of certain drawings such as faces because, for reasons of image rights, we cannot take the model of an existing person. Artificial intelligence allows us to be sure that the created face never existed.
With the rise of dematerialized payment, will we use fewer and fewer coins?
Our production of euro coins, which had fallen by 50% in ten years, going from a billion coins per year to around 500 million, was expected to continue to decline, but it has stabilized. It’s a paradox, because since Covid we have seen a strong increase in dematerialized payments, such as contactless cards and mobile phones. But in large countries we are seeing a stabilization of this development over the past year or two. The circulation of fiat currency in euros even increased by 21% between the end of 2019 and August 2023. This represents 279 billion euros, in coins and notes, in addition to the euro zone.
How can we explain this paradox, especially when we see a country like Denmark, where only 12% of transactions are carried out in cash?
There is great heterogeneity in payment behavior between countries. The Scandinavian countries, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, have gone down to 20% cash payments, or even less. But other countries are at much higher levels: the average in the euro zone is 59%, while in France, in 2022, it was 50%. Certainly, this has fallen compared to the pre-Covid period, when we were at 79% in the euro zone, nevertheless cash remains the primary means of payment at points of sale. Furthermore, in periods of crisis – whether financial, international, or natural disaster – cash represents a store of value, and households that can do so are more likely to keep money with it. them or at home. In the event of a natural disaster, when electricity goes out in an area, central banks are forced to bring cash to the site by truck. This was done in the South of France when there were landslides and floods two years ago.
Did the war in Ukraine have any effect?
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, cash withdrawals from ATMs exploded in Poland where they increased 17-fold compared to 2021. The same phenomenon was observed in other countries bordering Ukraine .
So the species are not about to disappear?
The population remains very confident in physical currency, and cash continues to be in high demand. When we ask the French if they are attached to cash, they answer “yes” at 80% and they do not want, by a very large majority, a world without cash. It’s another paradox: people use cash less, but they don’t want us to abandon it.
So the Pessac site has a bright future ahead of it?
I am convinced of it, even if there are certainly things that we will do less. It is likely that the Paris Mint will mint more coins for export than for France. In the emerging countries where we are present, demand is still strong. Innovation, the integration of new technologies and the development of new skills also project the Monnaie de Paris site to Pessac in the coming decades.