New Optical Banknote Features Come to the Fore After Two Year Hiatus – Part 1

The return of in-person conferences after a break of two years has seen a slew of new optical features launched for banknote authentication.

The Banknote and Currency Conference in Washington DC in February, High Security Printing™ Latin America in Mexico in March, Intergraf in Lyon in April and the Global Currency Forum in Tarragona in May were all opportunities for companies to showcase their latest developments for the first time.

In this article, we cover some of those developments. Part 2 next month will cover those we didn’t have room for this time round.

Long, Longer, Longest Yet

In 2019, the Central Bank of The Bahamas issued the $50 banknote in its new CRISP Evolution series, which used Durasafe® composite substrate from Landqart and included a RAPID® windowed thread from Crane Currency. Not only was this the first note in the world to integrate the micro- optics feature into the composite substrate, but the window itself (at 33mm) is the longest to appear in a circulating note.