An Exploration of First Nations Reserves and Access to Cash

Heng Chen, Walter Engert, Kim Huynh and Daneal O’Habib

No 2021-8, Discussion Papers from Bank of Canada

Abstract: Providing bank notes is one of the Bank of Canada’s core functions. The Bank is therefore interested in whether cash is adequately distributed across society, and this also influences the Bank’s thinking on issuing a central bank digital currency. We provide a perspective on these issues by exploring access of First Nations reserves to cash. To do so, we measure the distance between the 637 reserve band offices in Canada and their closest cash sources. In this study, these cash sources are branches of financial institutions (FIs), automated bank machines (ABMs) owned by FIs, and white label ABMs. We measure the distance between band offices and cash sources by geographical distance (“as the crow flies”) and by travel distance (e.g., road routes). We also provide some information on access to financial services more generally and set out questions for future research.

Keywords: Bank notes; Digital currencies and fintech; Financial institutions; Financial services; Payment clearing and settlement systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E41 E42 E5 G21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2021-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-mac, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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