The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing EMEA conference.

The Bank of England has issued its Annual Report for 2022. The key themes relating to banknote issuance and management were the completion of the polymer series of banknotes with the issuance of the £50 banknote, actions to safeguard access to cash and deposit services and the environmental impact of banknote operations.

Banknote lifetime values need to be treated with care because it is easy to form misleading conclusions. The biggest challenge is ensuring that a fair comparison is being made and that comparisons are made on representative data. The before and after scenarios should be like-for-like.

Jean-Claude Brou, President of the Economic Community of West African States, has said that the community has agreed to delay the launch of the ECO to 2027.

WaveFront Technology – a California-based supplier of nano and micro-structured tools, coatings and films for the security, lighting, aerospace, and display markets – used the Banknote & Currency Conference in February as an opportunity to debut its new new portfolio of security features for currency and other security applications.

27 June is World ATM Day. On this day 55 years ago, the world’s first 24/7 cash machine, or Automated Teller Machine as it was later to become known, was unveiled in London.

Whilst Crane Currency is, or rather was, first and foremost a paper maker, it is also the developer of the micro-optics feature MOTION® and its derivatives for threads and, more recently, for surface-applied stripes.

In the December edition of Industry Watch, the focus was on the implications of a new infectious COVID variant, Omicron. In the March edition, the focus switched to the war in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed on Russia and the implications, if the war continued, of a global fuel, food, fertilizer and aluminium crisis. This on top of the shortages of many goods used in manufacturing – a legacy of COVID.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued its annual report for 2021-22. The backdrop for the year was India’s second and third wave of the pandemic, which affected operations.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Central Bank of Barbados has unveiled the designs of its new polymer banknote series, which will be introduced on 5 December, two days after it celebrates its 50th anniversary.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina Argentina has showcased the designs of its new series of banknotes, in which the images of indigenous fauna and their habitats that feature on the current series will be replaced by famous Argentineans.

After a three year gap, the Coin Conference returns this October to Amsterdam, in what will be the sixth edition of the event, and the only one of its kind to focus on coins as part of cash strategies in circulation from the perspective of currency issuers.

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.

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.