Connected Banknote Wins Digital Currency Award

Orell Füssli Security Printing and AUGENTIC’s Connected Banknote – the UTOPIAN DUAL – won the Advancement of Digital Currency Award at the Digital Currency Conference in Washington DC last month, which took place immediately after the Banknote & Currency Conference.

The Advancement in Digital Currency Awards were presented to digital currency initiatives that take forward the platform as a payment instrument and are selected by experts of the Digital Currency Advisory Committee. They were presented at a gala dinner on 24 February.

Orell Füssli and AUGENTIC, a developer of Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) solutions, formed a partnership last year to help governments and central banks in their digital transformation agendas (see CN October 2021).

According to both companies, future proof CBDC solutions must be customisable for government use as well as address off-line availability, anonymity, and psychological factors during the migration from physical to digital cash. The UTOPIAN DUAL Connected Banknote covers all these aspects, combining Orell Füssli’s highly secure banknote technology with the AUGENTIC CBDC Platform, including trustwise.io Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

The Connected Banknote, which looks like a traditional banknote, can also be exchanged like a traditional banknote but, in addition, can be converted into digital cash at any given time. This happens by using encrypted, anti-copied 2D barcodes for authentication purposes via smartphone. All processes are secured by DLT – private, permissioned – in combination with smart contracts.

As such, it offers a customisable CBDC solution that bridges the physical and digital worlds of a currency. Transferring its value is transparent, secure, easy to use, and fast, say Orell Füssli and AUGENTIC.