How Commercial Bank Cashiers View Security Features of Modern Banknotes

At the High Security Printing™ (HSP) Asia conference in Bangkok last December, currency and counterfeit expert Aleksei Faleev gave a presentation on a survey conducted among cashiers in Kyrgyzstan to gauge their knowledge of and preferences for banknote security features. He has subsequently written this article based on that presentation.

Commercial bank cashiers in Kyrgyzstan need to take a two-day course before they start work to learn how to determine the authenticity of local and foreign banknotes.

In connection with the issuance of the fifth series of banknotes of the national currency – the som – in Kyrgyzstan in 2023-2024, trainers, who are former experts from the central bank, conducted a survey of some of these cashiers.

153 people took part in the survey from August to November 2024. The course participants were mainly young, aged 18-33 (81%). They were found to have excellent knowledge of the local currency, as well as US dollars and Russian rubles (73% each), satisfactory knowledge of euros (40%) but a very superficial understanding of the currency of neighbouring Kazakhstan (the tenge).