May 21, 2015 – Seven organisations have scooped a prestigious award from the International Association of Currency Affairs. Sponsored by Currency News, the awards were presented at a special ceremony during the Currency Conference, which took place on 14 May in Vancouver. IACA received nearly 60 nominations, including 27 candidates for Best New Banknote or Series alone.
Best New Banknote
This award was won by the Central Bank of Kuwait for their ‘Security & Elegance’ series notes which is the first redesign of the Kuwaiti banknotes in 20 years.
Best New Commemorative or Limited Circulation Banknote
This award was a ‘dead-heat’ and shared among all three finalists:
- The Central Bank of Nigeria for the 100 Naira banknote that celebrates the 100th anniversary of the country, which incorporates a new feature to make it the world’s first ‘smart’ note.
- The Nardowy Bank of Polski for their 20 Zloty Guardian® polymer note that includes three new security features appearing for the first time on a legal tender banknote.
- The Royal Bank of Scotland for its 5 pound banknote that features the ‘Ryder Cup’. It is the first ‘Hybrid’ note in Europe and incorporates modern security features.
Best New Banknote Processing Innovation
This award was won by The Bank of Canada for its ‘Single Note Inspection System’. This system optimises banknote performance by harvesting the right information and data about trends within the banknote lifecycle to enable a more complete and holistic understanding of banknotes.
Best Currency Website
This award was won by European Central Bank. The Euro banknotes multilingual website is the hub for the Eurosystem cash communications and Europa series educational campaign with 8 million page views and 4 million visitors.
Best Currency Education Program
This award was also won by the European Central Bank. The campaign for the Europa Series was designed as multi-channel, communicating the same messages across multiple target groups in the euro area using a range of communication tools.
Lifetime Achievement Award
A special lifetime achievement award was also presented to Sara E. Church. After a 26-year career in banknote security, Sara retired last year from her position at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
The Excellence in Currency Awards
Full details of this year’s awards will be provided in the June issue of Currency News. For details of all finalists, visit the Currency News website.
Four further IACA awards for coins will be presented at The Coin Conference in Madrid in October.