The frequency of the introduction of a new series or an upgrade was addressed in the April issue of Currency News. In this article, Antti Heinonen continues the debate by addressing the topic from a historical perspective.

After a gap, this month we return to the periodic series of articles covering cash information in central bank annual reports, with news from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, the ECB, Ghana, Nepal, Philippines and Saudi Arabia.

At the Banknote Conference in May, Guilmar Ernesto Moncayo Ponce from the Bank of Mexico provided information about progress on the first of a three phase project looking at the presence and role of micro-organisms on banknotes.

Banco de Moçambique has launched a new series of banknotes and coins to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the central bank and the 45th anniversary of Mozambique’s currency, the metical.

According to the Centrale Bank van Curaçao en Sint Maarten (CBCS), a significant milestone concerning the new Caribbean guilder has been reached, namely the printing of the first new banknotes.

The 2024 High Security Printing™ (HSP) Latin America conference took place, for the second time in its 12-year history, in the longest and narrowest country on Earth, filled with starkly contrasting landscapes that stretch from the driest desert in the world to ancient glaciers still waiting to be discovered. That country is Chile.

In June’s issue of Currency News™, we covered the rebirth of CPS and its new strategy. As part of this strategy, CPS has worked with its sister-company Enterprise Cash Management to develop ECM™ – Centralised Control.

At the Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) conference in in Lisbon this April, Michael Natan, President of Diametryx Inc, presented his new company’s intriguing colour-change particles in which the effects change not only by tilting, but shaking as well.

A bulletin published by the Banque de France describes its work on environmental sustainability. The paper offers up a model for others to consider, detailing the Bank's work on areas it controls directly – banknote paper and printing and its cash centres – and its collaborative work with others in the cash cycle.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (KBBNS) has run its ‘Equinox’ customer event in parallel with the DRUPA print conference and through into June. It has used the event to showcase what it does, to launch a number of new developments, particularly its AKTINA™ product, and to make the case for thinking about banknotes, and banknote printing differently.

Is dollarisation a cure-all for unstable, hyper-inflationary nations? It is very hard to make that judgement, especially since stronger currencies, whether it be the dollar or euro, are also subject to changes in their value which may or may not benefit the dollarised economies in the short-term.

Q&T Hi-Tech Polymer (Q&T), the latest arrival to the polymer substrate market, has announced that it has made remarkable progress since its establishment three years ago by securing its third contract for supply of Polysecure for the Vietnamese currency.

The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) has once again been ranked among Corporate Knights’ Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada. The ranking is based on 24 quantitative key performance indicators relating to resource management, employee management, financial management, clean revenue, clean investment and supplier performance.

Koenig & Bauer, in its report on its first quarter results, gave further details of its Spotlight programme, launched earlier this year to prioritise initiatives and business models that boost earnings and financial strength, deprioritise initiatives that do not directly impact earnings and optimise the group and segment organisation as well as the indirect cost structure to make processes even leaner and more customer-friendly.

The Federal Council of Switzerland has appointed Martin Schlegel as the new chairman of the governing board of the Swiss National Bank (SNB). He succeeds Thomas Jordan at the helm, who is retiring after more than 12 years in the position.

New Zealand adopted polymer banknotes in 1999. At the time, Brian Lang was Head of Currency at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ). To mark the 25th anniversary of polymerisation, we sat down with Brian to discuss the rationale behind the transition and assess its results.

The Bank of England has now put into circulation the new series of notes bearing the portrait of King Charles III.

Researchers at the Centre for Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence (CENPARMI) at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada have utilised image-mining techniques and machine learning algorithms to identify flaws in counterfeit coins, enabling greater detection of fakes.

In last month’s Currency News™, we featured Bundesdruckerei’s remarkable new Ignis house note as the Banknote of the Month. In this issue, we continue the theme with the presentation of four new house notes – one from Casa de Moneda de Chile (CdM) and three from Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW) – all of which combine innovative design with the latest security features from the respective companies and their partners.

The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing (HSP) Latin America conference. This year’s event was held in Santiago, Chile, with the awards presented at a special ceremony, during the conference dinner on 4 June.