The Central Bank of Honduras has announced that a new 200 lempira note will be issued in September. Notes of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 500 lempiras currently circulate in Honduras. The last note to be introduced – the 500 – was in 1997.

Currency Research has announced a webinar focusing on ‘Currency Use and Banknote Technology’, in support of the combined Banknote & Currency Conference.

The lockdowns and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic have had a great influence on retail shopping and payment habits. Besides the increase in online shopping, the growing use of contactless and mobile payments media have decreased the use of cash in transactions. Several recent payment studies confirm these developments.

The Bank of Albania has unveiled the next two denominations in its new series – the 1,000 and 10,000 lekës, which go into circulation at the end of June.

Gleitsmann Security Inks (GSI) has launched what it terms the ‘world’s first traffic light for banknotes’ in the form of mouve ^GSI, a unique security feature that will help safeguard cash and other security documents using luminescent colour effects.

The introduction of the new £50 was undertaken by the Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, at a special ceremony at Bletchley Park, once the top-secret home of the World War Two codebreakers and where Alan Turing, the subject of the note, carried out his most famous work breaking the Enigma code.

Cash in the UK is in an interesting place at the moment. The cash paradox – higher demand, lower use – is very much in evidence, as are growing concerns about the future of cash allied to branch and ATM closures, concerted moves from the government downwards to encourage people to pay digitally, and what the cash infrastructure could and should look like in the future.

After several months of a COVID-enforced digital only publication of Currency News™, we are happy to announce the resumption of the hard-copy distribution of the newsletter from July. Thank you for your patience during the disruption and we ask a little more forbearance as delivery services attempt to return to something like their pre-COVID levels.

COVID has given companies the opportunity to reflect and look at sustainability and the environment with more pressing urgency. There have been webinars and virtual conferences where this topic has been headlining, with paper manufacturers in particular demonstrating their activities to reduce carbon footprints and ensure the future and life cycle of banknotes is protected.

This is now the sixth Industry Watch, covering 18 months, where COVID-19 has been the main factor influencing market values and trends, both directly and indirectly.

The week before the issue of the new £50, the Bank of England published its annual report for 2020/21, which showed an increase in notes in circulation of £10.3 billion (14%). It credited this increase to the launch of the new polymer £20 note in February 2020 and the pandemic. These figures are quite a contrast to the Reserve Bank of India’s annual report, also issued recently, which saw a 7.2% increase.

The Mexican President has nominated his finance minister and economist Arturo Herrera Gutiérrez as the next Governor of the Bank of Mexico, to replace the incumbent, Alejandro Díaz de León, whose mandate is not being renewed.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published its 2020/21 Annual Report which saw a small rise in demand for banknotes and the RBI continuing with its programme of developing how it does its business.

Counterfeiting is a sensitive subject. Without counterfeiters most of us would not have a job, but central banks have a difficult line to walk. They need the public to check their banknotes, but equally they need the public to trust and have confidence in their currency.

The ATM Security Association (ASA) has launched a new worldwide Crisis and Crime Management Intelligence System (CCMIS).

Following the success of the Future of Cash online event in February 2021, the organisers – AGIS Consulting and CashEssentials – are continuing the conversation and providing a coherent story of today’s cash challenges and tomorrow’s opportunities.

It was only a matter of time! One of the claimed benefits of polymer is that it is more resistant to counterfeiting and hence more secure, and the figures bear that out.

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) is celebrating not just its 70th anniversary, and the 30th anniversary of the National Banknote Printing Plant, but is also marking its 18th year of using polymer banknotes from CCL Secure.

CCL Secure has unveiled SPARTAN™ – an ‘ultra-durable’ new polymer substrate that has been designed specifically to provide a new option for central banks and issuing authorities who have low denomination, high transaction velocity denominations that sit on the cusp of the note/coin boundary.

Reconnaissance International, organisers of the Optical Document Security™ and Digital Document Security™ conferences, have announced that these are to be combined into one new ‘super-event’ for physical, digital and virtual documents – Optical & Digital Document Security™ – which will take place in-person in Vienna from 17-19 January 2022.