At the awards ceremony held during the gala dinner at the Mint Directors Conference in Ottawa last month, the winner of the Best Circulating Coin category was the Royal Australian Mint (RAM) for the $2 Honey Bee coin, issued in 2022 as a joint collaboration with the Honey Bee Industry Council to mark the bicentennial of the establishment of the bee industry in Australia.

META Materials Inc, a developer of high performance functional materials and nanocomposites which acquired security feature specialist Nanotech Security Corp in 2021, has announced details of a restucturing plan that will see it focus on core business lines that are either generating revenues, or expected to do so in the near future.

Earlier this year Giesecke+Devrient outlined a solution for banknote waste which is ‘straightforward, flexible and scalable’ (see CN July 2023). After having introduced the concept of Banknote Fibre Extraction (BFE) at the CT Symposium, the next development phase has taken place.

The 2023 CashTech Innovation Awards, arranged by the thinktank CashEssentials and sponsored by Sesami, were presented at the Future of Cash conference, which took place 6-8 November in Istanbul.

The 6th International Mint and Print (MAP) Conference took place in Dubai. Just under 200 delegates from around 90 institutions and 40 countries took part in the event, organised by Mazen Hamden, with approximately 25% attending for the first time.

As Currency News™ went to press, news came out that the cash management firms Armaguard, with a 90% share of the market, is seeking a cash injection to ensure it can operate its banknote distribution services profitably, just five months after it merged with rival Prosegur to create a near-monopoly that was supposed to do just that (see CN June 2023).

The International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) held a webinar recently to discuss how sustainability is, and can be, incorporated into tenders by central banks. Purchasing power is, of course, a powerful lever for achieving policy goals.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has confirmed that it will allow old banknotes that were due to be phased out in December to remain legal tender indefinitely, following a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court.

The Banknote Conference, held every two years, is an independent, neutral forum for industry leaders to meet and discuss innovations, efficiencies, best practices, and new technologies and solutions that benefit their operations.

As covered in last month’s Currency News, in the Spring of 2023 Oberthur Fiduciaire took out a majority stake in Rolling Optics, which was founded in 2005 with solid technical background from research at the Ångström Laboratory at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) roared into the public consciousness in 2023. Its widespread use and, more importantly, its potential have become visible to all, not just the small specialist user community that has been working on it for years. Clearly, AI is of great interest to central banks from the policy makers through the cash issue department.

The Monetary Authority of Macao, together with the country’s two note issuing banks – Bank of China and Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) – have held a presentation to unveil a new series of banknotes with enhanced features for security and the visually impaired.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (KBBS) is continuing its strategy of innovating with partner companies.

Why do so many shops rely on the counterfeit detection pen to authenticate their paper banknotes?

Khalid Ibrahim Humaidan has been appointed the next Governor of the Central Bank of Bahrain, replacing Rasheed Mohammed Al Maraj.

Further to the coverage in the August issue of the cash information contained in the latest annual reports of central banks in Europe, this month we take a look at some from Africa and the Middle East.

UnderCurrency was established in 2019 as a technical consultancy service. We are based in Mexico and specialise in methodologies, solutions and systems for evaluating and enhancing the security, functionality and durability of secure documents and banknotes.

The UK’s Cash Industry Environmental Charter Group (CIEC), which consists of more than 30 organisations active in cash working together to establish best practice and drive change, has reported on its progress.

The organisers of the High Security Printing™ (HSP) conferences, Reconnaissance International, have announced the programme for the upcoming HSP Asia event, which – after a four year absence due to COVID – finally takes place in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 4-6 December 2023.

The International Currency Association (ICA), representing the global currency sector, held its Annual General Meeting in Bilbao, Spain during the Intergraf Currency+Identity conference, and elected the Board for the next two years.