April 9, 2013 – Mint of Finland has recently presented CoinTune, their approach to metal coin authentication. CoinTune combines fundamental physics and advanced digital technologies. Hence it is possible to significantly increase the number of reliable security features detected in coins.
CoinTune also allows new kinds of “invisible” structural security features to be manufactured within coins alongside existing security features. These new security features can contain specific digital information. CoinTune is based on well-known and highly reliable electromagnetic acoustic transducer technology.
Central and commercial banks and a variety of businesses will soon be able to utilise CoinTune technology in their current processing units. CoinTune can be integrated into minting and coin processing machinery with minor investments and effort. The best results are achieved when CoinTune is used alongside existing coin sorting machines and their sensors.
Electromagnetic acoustic transducer technology offers the minting and coin processing industries a new possibility to use a wide variety of invisible structural and material differences to improve coin authentication.
This is how CoinTune™ works:
1. CoinTune’s digitally recognisable security features are integrated into the coin’s macro- structures in a few different production stages with no additional investment.
2. The CoinTune system (sensor + signal processing unit) is integrated into the heavy duty current coin sorting units without affecting the processing speed.
3. CoinTune is able to recognise which production patch a future coin belongs to. Note that together with existing coin sorters, CoinTune also enables several new security features in existing coins.
Key features of CoinTune™:
- No loss of production speed or volume
- No heavy investments to be made in existing minting machinery or coin processing units
- No reduction in coin lifespan
- No changes required to vending machines
- CoinTune enables the safe use of less expensive coin materials for high denomination coins
- CoinTune enables the launch of larger face value coins instead of short-life low denomination banknotes
- This combination reduces coin-related infra- structural and governmental costs
For more information on the Mint of Finland please visit the official website.
You can find a video that shows how Coin Tune works on the Mint of Finland website.