On 4 April Microsoft turned 50 years old. Amazon is just over 30, Meta is 21 and the iPhone is just 18. Will they last as long as Microsoft?
Today only 30 companies in the UK’s 100 largest companies by market capitalisation listed on the London Stock Exchange were in the top 100 in 2000. The situation is similar for the S&P 500, which lists the largest US companies based on market cap, profitability, and liquidity, with only 80-100 companies remaining from 2000. However, it is interesting to note that Microsoft has remained among the top ten largest companies in the S&P 500 from 2000 to 2025.
Compare those figures with the currency industry. Monnaie de Paris lays claim to be the oldest mint, founded in AD 864. The Royal Mint, founded in 886, is a relative newcomer.
Putting China’s paper money to one side, banknote papermakers and printers are rather newer, evolving out of general paper making and printing. The papermaker Fabriano was founded in 1264, Tumba in 1760 (now part of Crane Currency) and Crane itself in 1775. The printer Orell Füssli was founded in 1519, De La Rue in 1813, Goznak in 1818, Oberthur in 1842, G+D in 1852 and Canadian Bank Note in 1897.
The CEOs of companies involved in making cash will, no doubt, tell you it is due to their commercial acumen, strategic decision making and operational excellence.
Perhaps the answer lies in the underlying technology of cash, the business case behind it and the usefulness of the product.
Coins and banknotes are a monopoly of the state. The value and role of currency is such that risks cannot be taken with its supply, security or quality. Long term relationships built on trust are required between central bank and supplier.
In addition, currency is self-funding through seigniorage. The result is that the relationship between currency producers and central banks is unusually stable, long sighted and high value. The rhythm of the relationship is long and steady.
If you look at the ‘white fiver’ issued by the Bank of England in 1793 through until 1957 virtually without change, and today’s banknotes, the technology involved is similar to the difference between an analogue phone and an iPhone. The race to keep ahead of the counterfeiters has seen advanced materials in substrates, inks, applied features, machine readability and production methods. The pace of change continues – see sidebar.
Much has been written about the strengths of coins and banknotes, from privacy to resilience to their accessibility. There are constant arguments about whether digital payment methods can truly replace cash, and the risks of easy convenience leading to its demise in a fit of absent minded carelessness.
Cash has already outlasted cheques, it looks like it will outlast the plastic card, and it is fighting a mighty rear-guard action against the digital wallet, instant payments, central bank digital currency etc.
We have seen many fine long standing cash producing companies, both private and state owned, close. Nobody is owed a living. But there is something about cash based on its unique strengths, and that there is something almost human about it, which suggests it will be around for a long time yet.
Machines are good, but they don’t connect with and allow connection between humans as cash does. Keep cash relevant, secure and available, and suppliers will give Microsoft et al a run for their money.
A previous Technical Director at De La Rue, John Haslop, would lecture the sales team not to under price their banknotes because there is more technology in a banknote than an iPhone. A banknote is a combination of up to nine different layers of material and print in perfect register. A security thread can have nearly a dozen layers of material in a 30 micron thick product, all in perfect register.
A banknote must operate in the desert and frozen wastelands, whether kept in a wallet or somewhere indescribable, whether put through a washing machine or left in the heat and UV glare of the sun or buried in the garden for years.
It must work when there is power and when there isn’t, whether the user is literate or illiterate, if they can see or cannot, whether they have a PhD or didn’t go to school, whether you are a child or very senior. Machines, trained professionals and the completely uninterested must know if the note is genuine.
A coin and banknote goes into circulation without a use by date and without a user manual. It must work from the first day of issue to whenever it is returned. It is a legal document. It has to work. It has to be accepted. And it has to be pretty, or beautiful, or at least handsome!
