The GS1 Central Bank community took the opportunity to attend the GS1 in Europe Regional Forum in Warsaw to hold its annual meeting for 2021. It was the first time members could meet in person since 2019. NCBs' participants with travel restrictions due to Covid 19 attended the meeting via videoconference. The Warsaw meeting was split into two sessions.

In the first session the GS1 Cash Team, a group of representatives of the national GS1 Member Organisations (MOs), learned about the business models of Cash-in-Shop providers and Independent ATM Deployers (IADs). The agenda also included a presentation on options for GS1 identification of security seals for banknote pallets by GS1 Slovenia and an insight into the message exchange for cash recycling by Deutsche Bundesbank.

In a second session the Central Bank GS1 User Group held its annual meeting with 10 Central Banks, 4 NCBs attended in person and 6 NCBs via videoconference. All representatives welcomed the opportunity to meet again. Central Banks reported on the progress of the introduction of GS1 standards in their national cash cycles, although most Central Banks suffered delays in their projects due to Covid 19. The National Bank of Poland (NBP) reported, that they have successfully integrated GS1 Standards in their internal processes and that the major professional cash handlers have connected to the NBP's GS1 based interface for cash transactions. The representative of the US FED gave an update on the project „Cash Visibility“ with which the US FED has successfully prototyped GS1-based message exchange with two nationwide operating cash handlers, one bank and one CIT.