In Other News…

• The Bank of Ghana has announced that 1 and 2 cedi banknotes are to be phased out in favour of coins. A bimetallic 1 cedi coin has been in circulation since 2007 and a 10-sided bimetallic 2 cedi coin was introduced in 2019. According to the Bank, the phase-out is due to heavy usage of the notes and the high costs of replacement compared with coins.

• The National Bank of Cambodia has issued a commemorative 30,000 riel banknote to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Paris Peace Acord, marking the official end of the Cambodian-Vietnamese war.

The note is printed on Landqart’s Durasafe® and is the first in the world to deploy Gleitsmann Security Inks’ innovative new ‘traffic light’ feature mouveGSI, which combines two fluorescent colours and phosphorescence in one ink (see CN June 2021).

The note also includes TRILUMIC®, a holographic foil stripe with a hidden halftone design feature from Hueck Folien.

• The Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) has issued its new 10,000 cólones and 1,000 banknotes, the last in its new series.

The BCCR introduced the first three notes – the 2,000, 5,000 and 20,000 cólones – late last year. The series is described as an evolution of the previous series of 2009, but with added durability and security, and an enhanced reflection of the country’s leadership role in environmental policy.

The whole series is now on CCL Secure’s GUARDIAN™ polymer. The fronts of the notes feature portraits of notable citizens and the backs contain images of native flora and fauna, in keeping with the theme of bio-diversity for which the country is renowned.

The key feature of the new 10,000 and 20,000 cólones is a KINEGRAM REVIEW® stripe from KURZ, applied over the transparent window. In a first for the technology, which offers two visually different designs on the front and back of the foil, the Costa Rican banknotes feature a registered image on both sides. In the new 10.000 cólones, the portrait of the former president, José Figueres, is repeated in the stripe on both sides. On the front, the foil also shows a stylised version of Costa Rica’s national emblem, whilst the reverse features a coloured sloth, the representative animal for Costa Rica’s rainforest ecosystem.

• The Central Bank of the Bahamas has completed the roll-out of its CRISP (Counterfeit Resistant Integrated Security Product) Evolution series with the introduction of the new $100. Printed by Canadian Bank Note Company on Landqart’s Durasafe, it features a MOTION® Surface stripe from Crane, the first time the two technologies have been combined.

Over the course of the last five years, eight new notes have been issued in the Evolution series, with the Bank selecting a variety of different substrates, printers and features.

A more detailed description of the new series will appear in Banknote of the Month in the November issue.

• The latest redenomination of Venezuela’s currency, involving the removal of six zeroes and another new name (bolivar digitales, code VED), has now started. The first notes to be issued under the New Monetary Expression are the 5 and 10 bolivares digitales. To follow will be notes in 20, 50 and 100s.