Lesotho – Unmatched Security from Within the Roof of Africa’s New Series

On 21 December, the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) launched a significantly upgraded series of banknotes, with dynamic and innovative security threads and advanced security print features.

The CBL was first established as the Lesotho Monetary Authority in 1978, and later through an Act of Parliament, was changed to the Central Bank of Lesotho. In 1966 Lesotho gained independence from the United Kingdom, and the loti was first issued (albeit as a non-circulating currency).

The loti (plural: maloti) takes its name from the word for mountain in Sesotho, Lesotho’s official language. It is subdivided into 100 lisente and is pegged to the South African rand, and both are accepted as legal tender within the country. In 1980, Lesotho issued its first coins denominated in both loti and lisente (dated 1979), which are legal tender alongside the rand.

The Kingdom of Lesotho is an enclaved country surrounded entirely by South Africa, with a population of about 2 million and an area of just over 30,000 km2. Its capital and largest city is Maseru.

Lesotho is well recognised for many things, including some of its traditional Basotho culture and clothing, such as the Mokorotlo. This is a type of straw hat represented on each denomination as either an OVI® or SPARK® Live security feature, and it is integrated into the watermark as well as in the see-through register on the front of each note. It is also the national symbol of Lesotho, appearing on the Lesotho flag, and licence plates.

Interestingly, Lesotho is also known as the ‘Roof of Africa’, or the ‘Mountain Kingdom’. It is officially the earth’s highest country, with the lowest point of the kingdom over 1,000 m above sea level. Such terrain has also generated lots of interest and competition amongst mountain bikers, skiers and adventure travellers.

There are five denominations in the upgraded series, which was last redesigned in 2010. The three higher denominations- the 200, 100 and 50 malotis – are produced by Giesecke+Devrient, and the two lower denominations – the 10 and 20 malotis – by Oberthur Fiduciaire.

The front of the banknotes have a common design, featuring a portrait of the three royal family members. The current king, HM Letsie III is the middle; to his left is his father, King Moshoeshoe II; on the right is the founder of the Basotho nation, King Moshoeshoe. The watermark portrait features Morena Moshoeshoe, who was the first King of Lesotho, from 1822-1870.

The reverse side of the banknotes display typical scenes of daily live in Lesotho, such as shepherds wearing typical Basotho blankets or the traditional Basotho huts. Additionally, the entire series has new sizes and tactile marks for the visually-impaired. And for improved security and processability, IR, magnetic and UV properties have been fully upgraded to support machine readability.

The 200, 100 and 50 feature advanced substrate embedded security. They each have a 4mm dynamic RollingStar® Moon thread based on micro-mirror technology. When tilted, perfectly aligned circles in an alternating pumping sequence, incorporating colourshift in the windowed security thread, can be observed. In the 200 it shifts from magenta-to-green. The text ‘200’ and ‘CBL’ is visible. Similarly, the 100 changes from green-to-blue with ‘100’ and ‘CBL’ visible. And the 50 changes from gold-to-green with ‘50’ and ‘CBL’ visible.

These threads are complemented by effect-matching SPARK Live on the front of the note, featuring the Mokorotlo straw hat, with a corresponding colourshift dynamism for each denomination.

The 20 and 10 malotis, meanwhile, feature DualTrack™, and OVI colourshift on the Mokorotlo. This changes from green-to-blue on the 20, and gold-to-green on the 10. Furthermore, the 10 has been upgraded with deeper red tones.

This new fully upgraded banknote series, showing the perfect integration of two printers, substrate-embedded features and state-of-the-art machine readability, has created another reason to visit the Mountain Kingdom.