Bank Indonesia has issued a new series of banknotes in seven denominations to coincide with the country’s 77th anniversary of independence.

Most of us will have our own experience of what it is like to be in a situation where you can neither access cash nor pay with it.

India is to take a further step and future-proof its plans for self-sufficiency in currency production with the construction of a new banknote paper mill, at a cost of INR 25 billion ($310 million).

Last November we ran an article on a research project by Pakistan Security Printing Corporation to evaluate the parameters for composting waste from banknote production by mixing it with manure. This time it’s the turn of the State Bank of Pakistan, and what it does in terms of dealing with banknotes at the end of their life.

Despite headline currency in circulation at near record levels, A$102.22 billion on issue at the end of July 2022 (that’s 27% higher than the July 2019 level), substantially less cash is being used in Australia.

The Banknote Ethics Initiative (BnEI), launched in 2013, now has 15 members, after the Spanish banknote printer and papermaker Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre – Real Casa de la Moneda was formally accredited by the BnEI Accreditation Council.

Introducing automated coin deposit machines is the latest initiative from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to promote the re-circulation of coins and persuade Filipinos to use them in their daily transactions.

Giesecke+Devrient has pledged to replace all virgin plastic in its payment card products with recycled industrial compostable or biodegradable products by 2030 at the latest.

Companies in our sector are not only working to reduce their environmental footprint and contribute to a greener future, in some cases their solutions are being used to further it.

The International Banknote Designers Association (IBDA) is to be wound up, 12 years after the organisation was founded, at the first International Banknote Designers Conference in Geneva in 2010.

Threads have developed into a security arsenal all on their own. But to provide a truly effective defence against the counterfeiter, the technical specification and design must be integrated perfectly.

There was palpable shock and surprise in the industry at the news that Portals is to wind down production of banknote paper, focusing instead on non-banknote paper and features.

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.

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.

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.