IACA Awards – the Winners Are…

The first day of the Banknote & Currency Conference, 22 February, saw the presentation of the latest International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) Excellence in Currency Awards.

The IACA Awards Review Committee for this round – the 16th in the series – included special guest judges Mazen Hamdan (International Mint and Print), J Dario Negueruela Martinez (ex Banco de España), and Lydia Yip (ex Hong Kong Monetary Authority), together with David Tidmarsh (Reconnaissance International) and, for IACA, Richard Wall, Brian Lang, Eugenie Foster, and Tom Ferguson.

Out of the 39 nominations, a shortlist of 15 was drawn up by the IACA Awards Committee for each of the four categories covered by the awards. These were then put to a ballot of IACA members.

Best New Banknote or Series

• Banco Central de Costa Rica and CCL Secure: Series B 2,000 colones, 5,000 colones and 20,000 colones banknotes 

• Central Bank of Azerbaijan and Giesecke+Devrient/Louisenthal: 50 manat banknote

• Banco de México: 1,000 pesos Series G banknote

• Qatar National Bank and De la Rue: 5th series of banknotes.

There was a tie in this category, with two winners – Costa Rica and Azerbaijan.

The new all-polymer Costa Rican series illustrates the country’s renowned biodiversity through images of flora, fauna and emblematic landscapes. It also pays tribute to outstanding figures in culture, science, education and politics.

The 2,000, 5,000 and 20,000 colones notes were produced by Oberthur Fiduciaire on CCL Secure’s GUARDIAN™. All designs feature a large complex main window and a smaller secondary window overprinted with SPARK® Live to create a different visual appearance on either side of the notes. The 20,000 colones also includes a KINEGRAM REVIEW® foil stripe by KURZ which, in a first for the technology, features a different registered images on either side.

Azerbaijan is in the process of upgrading its banknote series, and the theme of the new 50 manat note – ‘Education and the Future’ – forms part of the overall series concept of progress and independence.

The most pronounced feature in the new note is a RollingStar® LEAD Mix foil stripe, carrying a number of dynamic features, including a metallic surface relief motif ‘flip’ effect, alternating between the denomination 50 and manat symbol, and a colour shifting motif with with animated relief structures and depth, created by micromirrors.

Best New Commemorative Banknote

• Bank of Namibia and CCL Secure: 30 Namibian dollar banknote

• Banco de México and CCL Secure: 20 pesos commemorative G series, National Independence Bicentennial banknote 

• Bank of Guatemala and G+D/Louisenthal: 20 quetzales commemorative banknote

• Bank Indonesia: 75 Years Independence 75,000 rupiah banknote

• Monetary Authority of Singapore: bicentennial $20 commemorative banknote.

The winner was the Bank of Namibia for the 30 dollar note celebrating 30 years of independence. Prominent on the note is the image of the black rhino, one of the world’s most endangered species (with some of the proceeds from the sale of the notes being donated to wildlife conservation). The note was designed by CCL Secure and printed on GUARDIAN by Oberthur Fiduciaire.

Best New Coin or Series

• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas: 20 piso New Generation Currency coin

• Banco de México: 20 pesos commemorative coins (Veracruz and others)

• National Bank of Kazakhstan: 200 tenge coin.

The winner was the Banco de Mexico for its series of five 20 peso coins commemorating significant anniversaries in Mexico.

They are the first bimetallic dodecagonal (12 sided) Mexican coins, and the first to have the latent image security feature, in which a 20 numeral is visible when the coin is tilted.

Best New Currency Innovation

• Central Bank of Honduras and G+D/Louisenthal: 200 lempira registered security thread

• Vaultex UK: Green Path campaign

• CCL Secure: VIVID COLOUR.

The winner was Vaultex for its Green Path campaign, which was launched in September 2019 and involved the company asking staff for their ideas of how it could reduce negative impacts of its operations on the environment.

A dedicated team has been put together to implement those ideas, which have included removing second ATM countback stickers, reusing and recycling elastic bands, producing less wrapping, using scan-to-file for coin route sheets, removing CCS reports and replacing the plastic bags used for cashier workstation coin with reusable cloth bags.

To date, this has resulted in annual savings of 9 tonnes of plastic and 2.4 tonnes of paper. Alongside these initiatives, Vaultex has reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by 13% over two years and energy consumption by 34% over four years, and maintained a zero-to-landfill approach for all IT and telephony equipment since 2016.

IACA’s Excellence in Currency Awards program, which is sponsored by Currency News, was introduced in 2007 and has grown to encompass three separate series. In addition, during the pandemic, IACA held two rounds of virtual awards, in November 2020 and September 2021, the latter a special award series to cover industry responses to the pandemic that will have a lasting impact.

For details of the latest and other recent award winners, visit www.currencyaffairs.org.