After 232 years of continuous production, the US penny (or one cent coin) has finally ceased to roll off the presses for circulation. The US Mint hosted a ceremonial strike event at its Philadelphia facility in mid-November, with United States Treasurer Brandon Beach striking the final circulating penny coin.

Life used to be so simple. You could pay with cash, with a cheque or with a wire transfer. Today the number of payment options is big, and getting bigger, as ‘bank money’ fragments into a myriad of different products and payment rails. In addition, add in crypto currency, stablecoins and CBDCs. Where will it all end?

The Central Bank of Bolivia has completed its new ‘B’ series of banknotes with the issue of 10, 20 and 50 boliviano notes. The new 100 and 200 bolivianos were issued in June.

The Czech National Bank is to issue a commemorative 5,000 koruna banknote next March to mark the centenary of the central bank, and the 30th anniversary of the Czech koruna.

Dr Andrzej Nowak, Head of Open Innovation at SICPA, presented at the Future of Cash conference in Warsaw in November about what a radical banknote of the future could look like.

Hueck Folien has successfully commissioned a new high-vacuum vapour deposition facility at its headquarters in Baumgartenberg, Austria. The €8.6 million investment, announced in September 2024, includes both a new metallisation system and associated infrastructure upgrades, and marks a major advance in the company’s production of high-performance coatings for the security sector.

Jörg Eigendorf, Chief Sustainability Officer at Deutsche Bank recently posted on LinkedIn about monetising the protection of the rainforests. Coincidently, almost to the day, Biobanknote wrote to us about a project to reforest the Amazon.

Authentix, a pioneer in nano-optic security technologies, has signed a Cooperation and License Agreement with LEONHARD KURZ, one of the world’s largest advanced high security feature manufacturing companies, uniting the former’s breakthrough innovation with the latter’s world-class production capacity.

American Eagle, a US clothes manufacturer, hired the actress Sydney Sweeney for their autumn 2025 denim campaign. The campaign led to an increase in sales, attracting nearly a million new customers between July and September. The two products in the adverts, named after Sweeney, sold out – the denim jacket in a day and the jeans in a week.

We are all familiar with the earnest reasons for using cash. But what other benefits are there?

The Bank of Estonia’s supervisory board has chosen the current Deputy Governor Ülo Kaasik as its candidate for the next Governor. He has served as Deputy Governor since 2011 and will replace Madis Müller, whose term ends in June 2026.

In so much as company results provide a bellwether for the state of the industry as a whole, our industry appears to be in good health judging by the half year results of some of the publicly-listed market leaders, which were – for the most part – gratifyingly positive.

Swiss lawmakers have unanimously voted to enshrine the right to use cash in the nation’s constitution.

The focus for this month’s summary of news from central bank annual reports for 2024 and other sources is Asia, with information from Cambodia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and Thailand.

On 3 July 2024, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) began issuing its new series of banknotes, including the ¥10,000, ¥5,000, and ¥1,000 denominations, marking the first currency redesign in two decades. Almost a year later, as of the end of June 2025, c. 5 billion of the new banknotes had been issued, accounting for about 30% of the total volume of notes in circulation.

This March, the Caribbean guilder – the new currency for the people of the Caribbean islands of Curaçao and Sint Maarten – went into circulation, a good 15 years after the issuer of its predecessor – the Netherlands Antillean guilder – ceased to exist. A number of factors meant that, ultimately, the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS) was left with little choice but to introduce a new currency. But its introduction was not without its challenges – not least because the people of the two islands were largely indifferent.

In a continuation of the coverage in Currency News of some of the most ground-breaking houses note produced in recent months, the latest example is the SPARTAN™ Galapagos House Note from CCL Secure.

This series of periodic global updates, which started in 2017, have mainly focused on the development of the growth rates of the value and volume of banknotes in circulation. Furthermore, they have addressed some interesting phenomena around banknote demand. This latest update will follow this customary agenda.

Earlier this year, as part of a package of sweeping cuts under the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative to eliminate waste, President Trump directed the US Treasury Secretary to cease production of the country’s lowest denomination coin (each of which costs 3.7 times its face value to produce), reigniting a decade-long debate about the future of the coin (see CN February 2025).

Reconnaissance, co-publishers of Currency News and organisers of the High Security Printing™ (HSP) conferences, have announced the full programme for the upcoming HSP Asia 2025, taking place from 1–3 December 2025 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.