The European Union has announced a set of new directives to limit the amount of cash and crypto transactions in a move, it says, that will crack down on money laundering and terrorist financing.

The BEAC (Banque Centrale des Etats de l’Afrique Centrale) has now introduced its new series of banknotes, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of its foundation.

A review of this year's headlines.

The think-tank and cash advocacy initiative CashEssentials was presented with two awards at ATMIA’s recent ATM & Payments Innovation Summit 2022 in Berlin.

The Central Bank of Liberia is currently replacing its 2016 banknotes with a new series, which include updated designs and a new high denomination of L$1,000.

The production of US banknotes for 2023 will likely be below that of the previous two years, according to the 2023 Federal Reserve order for currency published in early November.

De La Rue’s results for the first half of the current financial year – 2022/23 – saw sales and profits fall, along with a reduced overall profit guidance for the full year.

The Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) has approved De La Rue’s near-term science-based emissions reduction target.

Len Olijar, Director of the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing, is retiring after more than 34 years with the organisation.

CCL Secure has won an Energy Management Award, together with its sustainability partner Verco, at the 23rd Energy Institute Awards ceremony, which was held on 23 November in London.

Nominations have opened for the 17th round of the ‘Excellence in Currency Awards’ run by IACA (the International Association of Currency Affairs) and sponsored by Currency News™.

Banque du Liban is issuing an updated 100,000 livres banknote as part of an ongoing upgrade that has seen the replacement of the threads in several of the notes in the series with RAPID® micro-optics threads from Crane.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (KBBNS) recently announced that it is moving into the cash innovation space by developing a family of ‘bridging technologies’ to enable the physical banknote product to connect to digital data ecosystems.

The Qatar Central Bank has issued a commemorative banknote to mark the FIFA World Cup, which is taking place in the country from 18 November to 20 December.

A year ago, the white paper, ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability,’ recorded a pleasing level of activity and progress across the cash industry on environmental sustainability, with plenty of evidence of organisations striving and achieving to do better.

To coincide with the Cash & Payments Sustainability Forum™ in mid-November, Reconnaissance issued a whitepaper – ‘What Goes Round Comes Round’.

Crane Currency has inaugurated a new filtration system that will reduce water consumption by as much as 500,000 cubic meters per year and remove more cotton fibres for reuse in paper production at its paper mill in Tumba, Sweden.

The venue and date for the African Currency Forum has been announced. It will take place from 15-18 January in Luxor, and more information about the events can be found at africancurrencyforum.com.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has said it will save as much as P2.4 billion (US$40 million) from the conversion of paper 1,000 piso banknotes to polymer due to their longer lifespan.

The Central Bank of Paraguay has announced that a new series of guarani banknotes is underway, with the preparations likely to take more than a year.