News in Brief

Glory Investigation into Employee Fraud

Glory held off announcing its financial results for the first nine months of the 2021/22 financial years, following the discovery of a major theft from the company amounting to ¥2.15 billion ($17.5 million) by one employee over a period spanning 13 years.

The employee in question, from a domestic subsidiary, had embezzled the money from 2009 onwards. The fraud first came to light in February, and an internal investigation was launched, which has now concluded and been published, with recommendations to prevent similar fraud happening in the future.

Glory has also restated its half year results, and subsequently published its third quarter results, which show sales up by 8.7% to ¥158.7 billion and net income up by 123% to ¥6.68 billion. For the full year, the company is forecasting sales of ¥225 billion.

Royal Mint Partnership for Recycled Gold

The Royal Mint has announced a partnership with Quintet Private Bank to introduce the use of recycled gold in an exchange-traded commodity (ETC).

The Royal Mint Physical Gold ETC – listed on the London Stock Exchange with the ticker ‘RMAU’ – will now be backed, in part, by bars made from recycled gold, making RMAU the world’s first gold ETC or exchange-traded fund (ETF) ever backed by recycled gold bars, according to research conducted by HANetf, the independent EFT investment platform.

This follows The Royal Mint’s announcement last year that it would be extracting gold from electronic waste such as laptops and smartphones as part of a diversification strategy.

Last year it signed a deal with Canadian start-up Excir to use the world’s first sustainable precious metal extraction technology, which it will use to retrieve the precious metals from e-waste, which is contained within the circuit boards of discarded electronics such as phones and laptops (see CN October 2021). It is estimated that that as much as 7% of the world’s gold may be contained within such e-waste, most of which ends up in landfill or is incinerated Unlike many other commodities, gold can be infinitely recycled with no degradation in quality, so could present an attractive investment opportunity for individuals and institutions seeking exposure to an innovative, recycled product.

Andrew Dickey, Director of Precious Metals at The Royal Mint, commented: ‘we’re delighted to work with HANetf and Quintet to champion responsible sourcing and circular economy practises. We already reuse a portion of our gold onsite to form gold bars, but this is the first time we have produced a dedicated recycled product for use within our ETC offering.’ 

Fed to Utilise AI for Banknote Production

In the CashTech session at last month’s Banknote & Currency Conference, Doug Crane, Advisor to the Federal Reserve Board, spoke about the challenges associated with both developing and then applying new technology. This session highlighted efforts at central banks as well as suppliers to apply recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) capability to the banknote industry.

The Federal Reserve Board is embarking on a research project to utilise AI in banknote inspection. One goal for the system is to discern between inherent production variation and intaglio characteristics from unacceptable quality deviations. This area has been very difficult for traditional quality inspection systems to achieve without excess false accepts or false rejects.

Another goal for the system is the quality inspection of intaglio printing plates to verify that the plate meets quality standards and is free of defects. This has proved to be a challenge due to the physical characteristics of intaglio plates and the complexity of the engraved image.

If implemented, the system promises to increase production efficiency, while greatly increasing the quality of the banknotes and reducing waste. The Board expects this research to continue in the future for a variety of applications.

New Cash Processing Centre for Brunei

Aegis Secure Solutions, Brunei Darussalam’s only end-to-end provider of CIT, ATM and cash management services, has celebrated the official launch of its refurbished cash processing centre.

The state-of-the-art facility, which it says is in full compliance with international banking standards, can accommodate 30 operators, and is capable of processing high volumes of notes and coins for all financial institutions and retailers of multiple sizes. The centre has been equipped with software and equipment for Giesecke+Devrient, including four BPS® Banknote Processing Systems and five ProNote® table top counters. 

The inauguration, including a ribbon-cutting ceremony, was attended by government and central bank officials and financial institutions, during which Jorge Vega, Aegis CEO, told them that ‘we believe that we can transform the cash cycle in Brunei. With our new cash center, we are capable of handling all your cash cycle through a full outsourcing mode.’ 

Aegis’ Cash Services Department is the first division in the security group to achieve full digitalisation – reducing paper usage by 90%, enabling real time tracking of cash services, and ensuring maximum security and accountability. This has resulted in a 65% decrease in ATM/Cash Deposit Machine (CDM) replenishment time and a reduction in processing time of 25 minutes per machine.

Spaleck Buys Induvis

Spaleck Surface Technology, specialists in finishing equipment for blanks and coins, has acquired Induvis, developers of inspection and sorting systems for coins.

InduVis (the name stands for Industrial Vision) was founded in 2013 by previous employees of inspection company TEMA, and specialises in 3D inspection. Unlike 2D inspection systems, its technology creates a virtual cross-section of coins, enabling multiple dimensions to be checked – not just height, depth and diameter, but also planarity, rim thickness, belt thickness and relief thickness. This in turn enables a multitude of defects to be detected in terms of faults, deformation, missing elements etc.

According to Spaleck, which is based in Bocholt near the German/Dutch border, with the takeover it will now be able to offer another additional process for surface treatment, individually tailored to the needs of its customers.