SAFEGUARD Polymer Shine Spotlight on The Caribbean

Over the course of the past four years, four currency series in the Caribbean have converted to polymer – starting with the East Caribbean dollar in 2019, followed by Trinidad & Tobago in 2020, then Barbados in 2022 and, most recently, Jamaica this summer. With the exception of the Trinidad & Tobago series, they all feature holograms on the higher denominations.

At the High Security Printing (HSP) Latin America conference in the Bahamas in June, Gareth Evans of De La Rue – the supplier of the SAFEGUARD® substrate and the designer and printer for all four series – took delegates through the rationale, the implementation, and the results to date of polymer in the region.

The four currencies that have recently converted to SAFEGUARD cover 11 countries, four central banks and 5.5 million people. The rationale for the conversion was to do with the central banks wanting more durable notes to ensure they stayed cleaner for longer and reduce replacement rates and overall costs. It also has the secondary benefit of being a friendly substrate for holograms.