The European Council has adopted a recommendation by the European Commission on the conversion of hryvnia banknotes into the currency of member states hosting people escaping the war in Ukraine.

Across industry publications, conferences and reporting, sustainability now sits alongside other key topics such as security, technical excellence, efficiency, value for money etc. This industry has done a great deal of work and made a real difference in its operations across the key areas where it affects the environment.

Crane Co – the US-based industrial products and processes conglomerate – has announced plans to separate the company into two independent publicly-traded companies.

At the Banknote & Currency Conference in February, Swiss substrate manufacturer Landqart revealed new research it has been carrying out on how to dispose of banknotes at the end of their life in an environmentally sound way.

As described in the Banknote of the Month feature in the February issue of Currency News™, Kazakhstan’s new 20,000 tenge is memorable on a number of fronts – not least because the use of the Durasafe® substrate enabled the first ever application of a stripe in a vertical orientation, but also because it is the world’s first circulating note to incorporate SICPA’s new SPARK Flow® feature.

In their mandate to help maintain economic stability and confidence in the currency, central banks must continually evaluate the cash cycle imperatives and pressures for business and community in their countries.

Last month, we covered the annual results of five of the major companies in the cash sector – Brinks, Loomis, NCR, Diebold Nixdorf and Crane Co. All bar one reported an increase in both sales and profits. This month is the turn of Spectra Systems, Orell Füssli and Prosegur, where the results are more mixed.

The Central Bank of Uzbekistan issued a new series last year, based on the theme of the ‘Great Silk Road’ – the network of trade routes which played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the East and West.

Following on from the successful trio of Banknote Conference, Currency Conference and Digital Currency Conference in February, Currency Research is preparing for their next in-person event, the EMEA Cash Cycle Seminar.

The switch from paper to polymer banknotes in the Caribbean is gathering speed, with two countries announcing in March that they will be making the change.

Orell Füssli Security Printing and AUGENTIC’s Connected Banknote – the UTOPIAN DUAL – won the Advancement of Digital Currency Award at the Digital Currency Conference in Washington DC last month, which took place immediately after the Banknote & Currency Conference.

The organisers of the Global Currency Forum (GCF) confirm they are ready to launch the first event for the global currency industry from the industry’s leading suppliers, the GCF partners who represent the entire life cycle of currency.

Optical security feature and foil manufacturer KURZ has published a report – Communication on Progress – which presents the company’s sustainability performance to date in detail and also discusses its goals and plans.

The Swiss National Bank has conducted a Life Cycle Analysis on its 9th series of banknotes. The study looked only at those elements of the life cycle directly under the control of the SNB, the manufacture, wholesale distribution and disposal of notes.

Ulster Bank, one of Northern Ireland’s three note issuing banks, has unveiled the design of its new vertically-orientated £50, which is inspired by the women of the province and is being printed on polymer.

Special awards have been made to a number of newly introduced banknotes that have demonstrated outstanding technical sophistication and excellence in design and security.

As has been well documented, sensational and alarmist claims in the media at the outset of the pandemic that handling cash transfers COVID has done long term and potentially irreparable damage to public confidence.

According to Giesecke+Devrient, the sustainability revolution has accelerated to embrace an ever-growing range of environmental and social issues.

Amongst the sector of the cash community involved in cash handling technology, Glory has led the way in teller automation and recycling systems, and although headquartered in Asia (Japan), has a global footprint.

When handling cash, we normally glance at each banknote for less than a second. Central banks and banknote issuers are coming to realise that this brief glimpse provides a crucial opportunity for public authentication.