The primary focus of the 6th IBDC taking place in Dubrovnik, Croatia from 24-27 October 2022 is ‘Design Community Reconnect’.

The last major industry event to take place before COVID hit was High Security Printing™ EMEA, which was held in Lisbon in March 2020. The latest HSP EMEA opens it doors from 13-15 June in Tallinn in Estonia, renowned at that time of year for its ‘White Nights’ when the sun scarcely sets.

Among the customary technical presentations and product launches at conferences, the one given by Komori at the recent Global Currency Forum on the topic of the metaverse was very much ‘out of the box’. Here Steve Craig of Komori explains what the metaverse is, and how Komori is looking at harnessing it for banknote production.

Oberthur Fiduciaire has launched a technology for threads in the form of RELIEF™ – which offers striking bas-relief 3D effects in what the company terms a major advance in security features for threads and unlike anything else on the market.

A new security thread featuring micro-optics was launched at the Global Currency Forum by Portals. Called Motus, the thread is the first security product to be launched by Portals following its acquisition last year of the security features and thread business Fabriano from Fedrigoni.

2021 was a great year for the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM), despite the ongoing effects of the pandemic, with record sales, profits, and a healthy $78.9 returned to the Canadian government, compared with $20 million the previous year.

De La Rue’s sales fell marginally in 2021/22 – revenue (non IFRS) of £375 million and operating profit of £36.4 million were down 3.3% and 4.5% respectively on the previous year.

The inaugural Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum, which will take place 15-16 November in Scotland’s capital city, Edinburgh, will share best practice, promote cooperation and address specific environmental challenges and solutions in the cash and payments arena.

The construction of the Banco de España’s new printworks for IMBISA just outside Madrid – the first new state-owned printing plant in the EU in over 50 years – has now been completed, and work has started on moving in the new equipment.

The history of French banknote and security printer Oberthur Fiduciaire dates back 175 years, being founded by Francois-Charles Oberthur in 1842.

Koenig and Bauer Banknote Solutions has just completed a series of showcase events for customers called ‘Open House’. Structured as a morning of presentations followed by equipment demonstrations, the day was focused on the practical, the tangible and improving those elements of business that are within the control of K&B BNS.

In his review of the Global Currency Forum, Wolfram Seidemann, Chairman of the ICA, compared the priorities of the cash industry in the past with today. Then, he said, the key priorities were security, efficiency and quality of notes is circulation. Fast forward several years, and the priorities look very different now.

The official launch ceremony for a new security document printing facility has taken place in Entebbe in Uganda. It will be owned and operated by the Uganda Security Printing Company, which was set up in 2018 as a joint venture between the state-owned Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation and Veridos, the German provider of integrated identity solutions.

Benjamin Diokno, Governor of the Bankgo Sentral ng Pilipinas, will join the incoming government as Finance Minister. His replacement will be Felipe Medalla.

It was a long-time coming, but following two years of delays and a last-minute change of venue, the inaugural Global Currency Forum finally went ahead in early May in Port Aventura in Spain.

The global independent think tank CashEssentials has announced the launch of the CashTech Innovation Awards, to recognise innovations that will facilitate access to and acceptance of cash.

Nominations will be open on 8 June for the 16th round of the ‘Excellence in Currency: 2022 Coin Awards’, run by IACA (the International Association of Currency Affairs) and sponsored by Currency News.

Giesecke+ Devrient launched its Green Banknote Initiative earlier this year. At the Global Currency Forum, it followed this up with the presentation of the Green Banknote - a physical token of this initiative printed on Hybrid ADDvance®.

Following the return of in-person events, one company that has been prominent with its range of eye-catching optically variable features is IQ Structures, which specialises in lithography techniques, 3D nano-printing and industrial replication of nanostructured materials.

BP Security is the new name for the security papermaker in Brazil, the only one in Latin America capable of producing banknote-grade mould made paper, formerly owned by Fedrigoni.