This year’s Regional Banknote the Year Awards for EMEA were presented at a special ceremony during the HSP conference dinner in the traditional Safran Zunft restaurant in the heart of Basel’s charming Old Town.

A new white paper investigates how cash management is changing and best practice for optimising efficiency, thereby reducing the cost and environmental impact of cash.

554,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation in 2024, according to the European Central Bank. This is an increase of more than 18% compared with 2023, and resulted in a ratio of 18 ppm, compared with 16 ppm the previous year.

2025 heralds the Year of the Snake in the traditional Chinese zodiac calendar. In December 2024, the People’s Bank of China announced the issue of a commemorative 20 yuan banknote for the 2025 Chinese Zodiac New Year.

The Bank of Zambia has announced the introduction of a new family of notes and coins, which will be introduced at the end of March.

The landscape of currency is undergoing a significant transformation. While cash remains a fundamental means of payment, the rise of digital transactions and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) is reshaping the future of money.

Each February and March we cover the previous year’s results for the leading companies in cash management, most of whose financial years run from January to December. Between them these results provide a useful means of taking the pulse of our industry.

Back in May last year we covered the pre-launch at the Banknote Conference of a new polymer substrate from Covestro, and in December the official launch under the name CERTEVO®. It appears we were premature, as that launch referred to the version intended for ID and secure document, not currency.

Data both allows and creates questions. Answering questions generates information. Information allows decisions and actions. Without accurate, relevant, reliable, consistent, standardised and timely data, creating and delivering anything is hard, particularly change.

The 2025 edition of the High Security Printing™ EMEA conference was located, for the first time in its history, in Switzerland, in the picturesque city of Basel. The sell-out event attracted 265 delegates, from 117 organisations spanning 44 countries. 38% of the organisations were from government (central banks, issuing authorities) or state printworks.

The 2025 Currency Conference is returning to Bangkok, Thailand, from 26-29 May 2025. Conference organiser Currency Research expects to welcome nearly 400 delegates from 70 countries, including 70 central banks and 150 organisations in total. At the time of publication, nearly 50 central banks have already registered for the event.

Financial authorities remain concerned about counterfeiting US currency; however, recent studies suggest a declining trend in the circulation of fake banknotes. A new report by Ruth Judson and published by the Federal Reserve – Estimating the Volume of Counterfeit US Currency in Circulation – provides insights into counterfeit US dollar circulation and its economic impact.

In the December issue of Currency News™ I wrote on whether note issuers are keeping ahead of the counterfeits, with an update on the latest counterfeiting data, using as one of the data points the ppm metric (parts per million, ie. the number of counterfeits detected versus the number of genuine notes in circulation). The following month, Duncan Reid wrote about the shortcomings of the ppm as a metric. It is great that the topic has raised debate, and Duncan’s article provides the few interesting viewpoints, which Currency News has invited me to comment on.

The Central Bank of The Bahamas (CBB) has released its new CRISP Evolution $1 banknote. While the design remains basically the same as its predecessor, the previous note was printed on Giesecke + Devrient’s Hybrid™ substrate, while the updated version features its Hybrid ADDvance® substrate.

The Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) has announced a new partnership with enim Technologies, which extracts precious metals from e-waste, to explore the possibility of incorporating these metals into the Mint’s future coin production.

On 12 December De La Rue made known that it had entered talks with a consortium to sell up to 40% of its equity, which would value the company at about £245 million.

Shaktikanta Das has been replaced as Governor of the Reserve Bank of India by Sanjay Malhotra, former Revenue Secretary in the Ministry of Finance.

Komori has released its Integrated Report 2024, a detailed overview of the company’s financial and non-financial performance, along with its plans to create long-term value through innovation, sustainability, and global expansion.

Danmarks Nationalbank has signed an agreement with FNMT–RCM for the production of Danish coins over the next four years.

The next edition of the Intergraf Currency+Identity conference, which has been connecting technological innovators and institutional end users since 1976, takes place in Milan from 3-5 March.