CCL Secure Makes Multi-Million Investment

CCL Secure is cementing its leading position in polymer production for banknotes with major additions to the capabilities of its production lines.

The company is investing £9.5 million to include support for its latest two innovations. First is SPARTAN™, an ultra-durable banknote engineered specifically for the note/coin boundary (see CN May 2021). Second is CINEMA™ – a novel security feature available with its GUARDIAN™ substrate.

‘We’ve made these investments so that we continue to be at the forefront of polymer banknote technology,’ says Dr Tim Berridge, CCL Secure’s Director of R&D, Marketing and Design. ‘With new security features such as CINEMA that can only be achieved in polymer and the introduction of SPARTAN, this level of investment makes sure that we can meet global demand using our existing production lines, based on three continents.’ SPARTAN is the company’s new polymer substrate to meet the demand for an ultra-durable, cost-effective polymer banknote specifically for the note/coin boundary. Although GUARDIAN (which is used in more than 75 billion banknotes in circulation worldwide) is already renowned for its durability, the engineering brief for SPARTAN was to create a polymer that would be even tougher in order to stand up to the rigorous experience by a high transaction velocity banknote, constantly changing hands.

The creation of SPARTAN has benefited from close co-operation with another CCL Industries company, Innovia Films, which provides the base film (as it does for GUARDIAN). SPARTAN banknotes have already achieved impressive lab test results, making it easily the most durable polymer banknote yet tested by CCL Secure, says the company.

Complete SPARTAN banknotes are printed on a wide web gravure printing press, using multiple printing stations to create the design. Additional functional layers are also applied inline to provide tactility and ensure the notes perform in circulation.

CINEMA, introduced in 2020, is what CCL Secure terms a groundbreaking security feature. The Double Soft Emboss Technology feature – described as a new dimension in banknote security – enables the creation of both 3D and movement effects that are instantly recognisable with the naked eye and is available only with banknotes using GUARDIAN substrate.

For CINEMA, Innovia Films produced a variant of the Clarity™ C film used in GUARDIAN notes.