The Mint Directors Conference 2023 is fast approaching and the Royal Canadian Mint have shared highlights of the programme, comprising two days of thought-provoking sessions.

Giesecke+Devrient has announced the next generation of its BPS® M systems for banknote processing – the BPS® M evo series.

This month we look at how to deter the most common types of counterfeits.

The Central Bank of Libya (CBL) has been reinstated as a unified sovereign institution, almost a decade after it was split in two because of the civil war.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (KBBS) and Aflatoun International, a global leader in innovative financial literacy ecosystems, have announced a new partnership to explore and develop new ways to enable access to financial literacy resources, using banknotes as a tool.

What do the KGB, the Chinese Communist Party, the Canadian Prime Minister and the UK’s Brexit campaign leader have in common?

Plans for the separation of NCR Corporation into two separate businesses is moving apace, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission declaring effective the registration on Form 10. The two new businesses, NCR Atleos and NCR Voyix, will focus on ATMs and digital commerce in retail, hospitality and banking, respectively.

Banking on World Heritage, a first-of-its-kind exhibition, was held at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in New Delhi from 30 June to 9 July. It was conceptualised and curated by Ms Rukmini Dahanukar, an independent research scholar under her proprietary research, ‘Money Talks’, that unfolds the untold story of banknote art and design from around the world.

In the June issue of Currency News™, our lead article was on laws to protect cash gaining momentum, with specific reference to the euro and a proposal on legal tender status for notes and coins. This month we look at some developments on an individual country basis in Europe regarding enshrining the right to cash in law, both within and outside the eurozone.

The production of a million banknotes (or one shift of an intaglio printing line) produces 100 kg of intaglio ‘sludge’. Sludge is frequently sent to landfill because of its contamination in the process used to extract it from the printing process.

CBDCs started to become visible in published papers and discussions around 2016. No doubt there was much material before then but the acceleration of interest and activity has taken CBDCs from a niche to main stream media discussions.

This month we look at Europe, and the annual reports of some Eurosystem central banks, as well as the central banks of Albania, Denmark, Kosovo and Hungary.

The Central Bank of Jordan has issued the fifth and final note in its new series – the 5 Jordanian dinar (JD).

Miguel López, Research and Development Unit Manager in Banco de España recently presented a new way of designing cash, Neurocash, at both the EMEA and Latin American High Security Printing conferences.

Banknotes have changed considerably since De La Rue printed its first paper money for Mauritius in 1860. The adoption of lithography introduced more colourful designs, patterns, and imagery. Security features such as watermarks, polymer windows, threads, novel inks, and applied features then additionally introduced contrasting textures and sheen, movement and complexity.

The Reserve Bank of Fiji has released a commemorative banknote to celebrate the Chinese Lunar Year of the Dragon. The date of issue – the eighth day of the eighth month– is an auspicious one, the number 8 being the luckiest in Chinese culture, symbolising wealth and good fortune.

The Vacuumatic Group, in operation for over 70 years, has announced a restructuring programme involving the closure of its headquarters at Colchester in the UK, and the transfer of production to its former sales and service subsidiary in Germany.

Hitachi Payment Services, India’s leading integrated payment solutions provider and a subsidiary of the Japanese multinational technology conglomeration Hitachi, has entered into an agreement to acquire the cash management business of Writer Safeguard from its parent, the Writer Corporation.

Currency News caught up with Roeland Monasch, CEO of Aflatoun International, and Mark Stevenson, KBBS Market Development Manager, at Aflatoun’s headquarters in Amsterdam, to find out more about the companies' new partnership in the financial literacy space.

In his interview in last month’s Currency News, Frederic Trojani, CEO of SURYS, referenced a new thread from the company, Vibes™.