Banknote holograms were winners in three of the five categories in the Excellence in Holography Awards 2021 organised by the industry trade body, the International Hologram Manufacturers Association (IHMA).

The Bank of Canada (BOC) has a Currency Inventory Management Strategy (IMS) based on its high-speed sorters that capture the image of every banknote, including the serial number, along with the date the banknote was created, shipped from the central bank’s distribution sites and returned to them.

The EMEA Cash Cycle Seminar (ICCOS) was again held in a virtual format at the start of November. Despite this, the event attracted nearly 200 registrations based in around 40 countries and representing 77 different organisations.

As noted in the recently published special report ‘Cash: A Roadmap to Sustainability’, there is an environmental cost to the removal and disposal of banknote waste during production and at their end of life.

Koenig & Bauer Banknote Solutions (K&B BNS) has launched an app that is described as bridging the gap between the physical and the digital. Known as ValiCash™, the app not only helps identify but actually authenticates high security documents as well by scanning the document and giving either a ‘Pass’ or a ‘Fail’ response almost instantaneously.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has confirmed that it will trial a run of ‘a few hundred million pieces’ of the 1,000 piso on polymer during the first half of 2022.

Australia is often touted as one of the countries moving the fastest to becoming a cashless society. Whilst longer-term projections and data on payment habits support that view, recent figures from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the Royal Australian Mint (RAM) indicate the opposite over the last year, albeit the (hopefully) one-off consequence of COVID.

Cash Processing Solutions (CPS), the clue to whose activities is in its name, describes itself as one of the industry’s ‘best kept secrets’. Currency News spoke to Barrie Foley, to find out more about the company’s portfolio, its plans for growth, and where it sees itself and the cash industry going in the next few years.

META Materials Inc, a developer of high-performance functional materials and nanocomposites, has announced the completion of the acquisition of Nanotech Security Corp, which produces secure nano-optic security features for banknotes and other secure documents, in a deal valued at c. C$91 million. Nanotech has now been delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange.

The Bank of Ghana has announced that 1 and 2 cedi banknotes are to be phased out in favour of coins. A bimetallic 1 cedi coin has been in circulation since 2007 and a 10-sided bimetallic 2 cedi coin was introduced in 2019. According to the Bank, the phase-out is due to heavy usage of the notes and the high costs of replacement compared with coins.

The Four Nations group was founded in 1978 and consists of five central bank members – the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Bank of Canada, Reserve Bank of Australia, Bank of England and Banco de México.

Jura held a number of workshops on 5-6 October in Budapest as part of the newly-launched Jura Academy. This was one of the first physical events where customers and suppliers travelled to come together for the first time in the last 18 months or so, and representatives were in attendance from Austria, Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, Germany, Netherlands, Slovenia, Oman, Yemen, UAE, Saudi Arabia, the UK and, of course, Hungary itself.

Registration is now open for the new Optical & Digital Document Security™ (ODDS) conference, which will be in Vienna, Austria, 17-19 January 2022, with the programme available to view online at opticaldigitalsecurity.com.

With the UN Climate Change conference, COP 26, taking place through early November, we thought it would be appropriate to review the environmental work of stakeholders in the cash industry over the last few years.

With COVID still disrupting travel plans, the 11th EMEA Cash Cycle Seminar (ICCOS) is being held virtually on 2-3 November. Over 200 attendees representing central banks, commercial banks, CIT and suppliers from more than 40 countries have registered for the two half days of thought leading presentations in an agenda dominated by cash users.

Øystein Olsen, Governor of Norges Bank, has announced he will retire next February, a year before his second term is due to end. The Central Bank of Chile has appointed Beltrán de Ramón to the role of General Manager, responsible for the day-to-day operations. He replaces Alejandro Zurbuchen Silva, who has retired.

The World Banknote Summit (WBS) has announced the programme which, due to COVID, will be held online on 22-24 November. According to the organisers, the focus of WBS is not on touching all bases or providing a general overview, but about getting to the heart of the issues that are of paramount importance to the payments industry.

The Holography Conference Online, the annual event for the worldwide holographic community, takes place 17-18 November, and this year currency-related presentations are strong on the agenda.

Nepal Rastra Bank began issuing a new series in 2020, starting with 1,000, 100 and 50 rupees. This year, despite the COVID restrictions, it has continued the programme with the issue of new 20, 10 and 5 rupee notes. The new 500 rupees is expected to follow in 2022.

COP 26 is taking place next week in the UK. The leaders of the world will be in attendance (most of them at least – the Russian and Chinese presidents aren’t turning up) along with around 30,000 others – from negotiators and journalists to lobbyists, NGOs, businesses and even protesters – from 200 or so countries.