Austrian foil manufacturer Hueck Folien has erected a new 400 kWp photovoltaic Wp system on its Baumgartenberg premises, with an output equivalent to the energy consumption of 100 households.

In our February feature on counterfeiting, Duncan Reid covered adversarial analysis. In this article he reviews the classification of counterfeiters, illustrated by case studies at each level.

The Banque de France (BdF) has announced that the construction of a new banknote printworks on the same site as its paper mill in Vic-le-Comte (Europafi) is going ahead, and will be completed in 2026 at a cost of €220 million.

It’s official – Croatia has been given the green light to adopt the euro as its currency. On 12 July the Council of the European Union formally approved its accession to the euro area on 1 January 2023.

On 26 July, De La Rue announced that it is terminating its ten year supply agreement with Portals Paper five years early, an agreement that formed part of private equity-backed management buyout of the paper maker in 2018.

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) has recently commented about options for its denominational structure, following ‘fake news’ that it is planning to introduce a new high denomination R500 note and R10 coin.

Compared with the resources of the cashless lobby in advocating for a digital payments future, those of the lobby supporting cash are miniscule. That isn’t to say that there aren’t organisations supporting the case for cash, but their activities are largely centered around specific regions or sectors.

Several studies have revealed how overt security features are not only more efficient, but are easy to recognise and authenticate, when they are well integrated in the banknote design.

In May, we covered Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions’ two offerings for app-based banknote authentication and education. This month it is the turn of two more – from De Nederlandsche Bank and Orell Füssli Security Printing.

The Bank of England has issued its Annual Report for 2022. The key themes relating to banknote issuance and management were the completion of the polymer series of banknotes with the issuance of the £50 banknote, actions to safeguard access to cash and deposit services and the environmental impact of banknote operations.

Counterfeiting of Australian banknotes is approaching its lowest level in a decade. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has carried out an analysis of the factors playing a role in this decline and quantified their effects. The report – Recent Trends in Counterfeiting – has been published in its June Bulletin.

The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing EMEA conference.

The Asia Cash Cycle Seminar returns to its live and in person format, after a three-year hiatus, taking place 5-7 September in Manila, 10 years after it was last held in the Philippines.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has received approval for a budget of at least P25 billion ($450 million) for the construction of its new Currency Production Facility (CPF) in a 31.2 hectare complex in New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac.

The Future of Cash conference, which returns this year as an in-person event taking place 14-16 September in Madrid, was the first of its kind to bring together all stakeholders involved in the cash cycle.

The Governor of the Sveriges Riskbank, Stefan Ingves, will step down at the end of this year, to be replaced by the country’s chief financial regulator, Erik Thedéen.

In April, the Central Bank of Tunisia completed the introduction of its latest series of four banknotes, the 11th since its inception in 1958, making it one of Africa’s most prolific banknote issuers.

Both before, during and since the two years of COVID, the industry has become very aware of what has become known as the cash paradox, identified as the continued growth of cash in circulation compared with a country’s GDP, despite its declining use for payments.

In the December edition of Industry Watch, the focus was on the implications of a new infectious COVID variant, Omicron. In the March edition, the focus switched to the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia and the implications, if the war continued, of a global fuel, food, fertilizer and aluminium crisis. This on top of the shortages of many goods used in manufacturing – a legacy of COVID.

Casa de Moneda Argentina (CMA) is in the midst of a technology transformation programme involving the recruitment and training of new staff, modernisation of both its production facilities and the acquisition of new equipment, among them the latest SPARK Flow® module for the NotaScreen. It has also invested in an upgrade of Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions’ ONE design software to the latest 2.1 version.