The International Optical Technologies Association (IOTA) has introduced a new Start-Up Membership Programme to encourage innovation and strengthen collaboration across the optical security and authentication sector.

The Banknote Conference, held in Washington DC in May, involved 432 delegates from 164 organisations across 68 countries, including representatives from 88 central banks and printworks. Organised by Currency Research and bringing together central bankers, banknote designers, security experts, printers, substrate manufacturers and cash cycle specialists, the event provided a comprehensive overview of the challenges and opportunities facing the global cash community.

Durasafe®, from Swiss substrate producer Landqart, is a composite material that consists of two outer layers of security paper, fused together with a central core of transparent polymer. The strength of the polymer core combines with the benefits of well-known paper security features to offer a product that is ‘the best of both worlds’.

Few people who are still around in the industry will be able to recall the first Currency+Identity conference (referred to then, and frequently now as well, as just ‘Intergraf’), back in 1976. But since those early days with around 80 participants, it has grown to become one of the ‘must-attends’ of the currency and identity industries, with around 1,000 people typically taking part each 18 months.

Italy’s Carabinieri have dismantled a major transnational criminal network that used Telegram and Bitcoin to distribute counterfeit euros across Europe. The crackdown, code-named ‘Operation Domino’, culminated in the Carabinieri Anti-Counterfeiting Command Cryptocurrency Section executing court orders against 12 suspects.

De La Rue, in collaboration with Onoto, has launched ‘The SAFEGUARD® Pen’ – a limited-edition writing instrument that, it says, represents more than a century of shared heritage, craftsmanship and innovation.

The Competition Authority of Kenya has officially authorised Monarch Capital – a leading investment firm in the country – to acquire 100% of the shares of De La Rue Currency and Security Print (K) Ltd – De La Rue’s former Kenyan banknote and security printworks. This was the last remaining stake left behind after De La Rue’s 2023 banknote printing exit and marks a move towards full ‘kenyanisation’ of banknote production.

Four separate cash-related stories from four separate countries in the last month. One theme in common, however, which is the enduring personal attachment to banknotes – dare one say the emotional support – that currency involves. In other words, what unites them is the fact that emotion still prevails when it comes to a nation’s calling card, even in those countries which are supposedly doing away with cash, as is claimed to be the case in Denmark and the UK.

Currency News™ has published annual updates on the global demand for banknotes since 2017, but these updates have focused mainly on most recent trends. By contrast, this article will address the development of global note demand during a period covering close to three decades. The regular annual update will be published later this year, when the volume figures for 2025 are available.

Q&T Hi-Tech Polymer and KURZ have signed a Project Development Cooperation Agreement to integrate KINEGRAM® optical security features into Q&T’s PolySecure® polymer banknote substrate. The partnership will focus on embedding KURZ’s KINEGRAM® technology directly within the layers of Q&T’s polymer substrate structure, creating a higher level of security integration than conventional surface-applied features.

After five years and an investment of c. €60 million, De La Rue’s new factory in Malta has been officially opened in the presence of the country’s Prime Minister, Robert Abela, and Silvio Schembri, Minister for the Economy, Enterprise and Strategic Projects. Described as a ‘supersite’, it will – says De La Rue – support the creation of world class, functionally excellent banknotes for the next 50 years and beyond.

In what could be termed a new tactic for Russia in its war against Ukraine, it dropped fake banknotes with propaganda QR codes into some of Ukraine’s border regions ahead of its annual 9 May Victory Day celebrations.

The Swedish-based international provider of cash management solutions, Loomis AB, is making good on its strategy to expand in Latin America with its most significant acquisition to date, launching a Tender Offer Agreement (TOA) to acquire the Peruvian cash management firm Hermes Transportes Blindados SA. The enterprise value of approximately SEK 4 billion (US$380 million) on cash and debt free basis represents a 6.6x adjusted EBITDA multiple based on Hermes’ 2025 financial year.

You can’t move today for mention of AI, but we had expert systems as far back as the early 1970s.

In its annual report for 2025, the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) states that it navigated a complex operating environment, marked by economic volatility and geopolitical uncertainty.

Economist and financier Kevin Warsh has been confirmed as the new Chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, succeeding Jerome Powell, whose tenure over the past year has been marked by clashes with President Trump.

This month, our periodic series of articles covering cash information in central bank annual reports focuses on Jamaica, Malaysia, Maldives, and Namibia.

One of the main most visual environmental impacts of banknotes is not in their production but their destruction – with incineration and landfill still being all-too-frequent methods of removal. In last month’s Currency News™, we reported on the results of the 2025 Banknote Recycling Study, the latest biennial survey from Royal Dutch Kusters Engineering (Kusters), which explored how central banks are handling the disposal of unfit notes in particular, and progress made (or not) since the previous survey of 2023.

At the Global Currency Forum (GCF), Jura presented their work on creating a next generation banknote design software extended with some AI functions. The presentation included a detailed review of the performance of different AI models set the task of producing an engraved portrait.

Oberthur Fiduciaire unveiled two major additions to its Anima™ micro-optics platform – Anima™ Sign and Anima™ Colour – at the recent Global Currency Forum. Both innovations highlighted advances in machine readability and colour versatility, two increasingly important elements in next-generation banknote security, in addition to the integration of all the effects already available in Anima™.