White Nights for HSP EMEA

High Security Printing™ EMEA took place 13-15 June in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital on the Baltic Sea.

Famed for its ‘white nights’ in mid-summer, when the sun hardly sets, Tallinn is the country’s cultural hub. It retains its walled, cobblestoned Old Town, built in the 13th century, which made the perfect backdrop for this event. But don’t get the impression that Tallinn lives in the past – it is one of the top-ranking countries in the world on the UN’s E-Government Development Index.

The event was host to over 200 delegates from more than 108 organisations and 35 countries.

There were two currency-related pre-conference seminars – one on sustainability and the circular economy, and the other on using open source intelligence to identify materials and equipment used in counterfeiting operations,

In terms of currency in the region, of the 161 currencies and 1,005 circulating denominations in the world, EMEA accounts for over half of them (88 and 541 respectively, to be precise). Over the last two years (ie. since the last HSP EMEA in Lisbon, just before the pandemic), there have been changes to 37 currencies – be these new series, upgrades, a switch from paper to polymer and vice vera, commemorative notes, or shifts in the note/coin boundary.

A presentation on these changes set the scene for the rest of the conference, which was split into two parallel tracks – one on currency and the other on identity documents. A total of 52 presentations were delivered over the two days, with dedicated sessions on the currency side covering regional developments, security features, design and production, print and processes, and cash of the future.

Two highlights of the event included the conference dinner at the Tallinn Seaplane Harbour, which provided the setting for the annual Best Banknote and Best ID Document Awards (see page 17), and the HSP Football Match at the Sportland Arena which, unusually (and thankfully), took place without any injuries.

HSP EMEA 2023 will be held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, from 7-9 March 2023, and will include a visit (for central banks and issuing authorities) to the Oumolat Security Printing printworks.

hsp-emea.com