In this occasional series, we round up the recent new issues of banknotes containing a hologram or other optically variable device.

Over the course of the past four years, four currency series in the Caribbean have converted to polymer – starting with the East Caribbean dollar in 2019, followed by Trinidad & Tobago in 2020, then Barbados in 2022 and, most recently, Jamaica this summer. With the exception of the Trinidad & Tobago series, they all feature holograms on the higher denominations.

The Reserve Bank of Fiji has released a commemorative banknote to celebrate the Chinese Lunar Year of the Dragon. The date of issue – the eighth day of the eighth month – is an auspicious one, the number 8 being the luckiest in Chinese culture, symbolising wealth and good fortune.

In Meta Materials Inc’s recent webinar ‘Producing the World’s First Fully Plasmonic 3D Animated Banknote Security Feature’, Vice President, Technology and Innovation Clint Landrock explained the motivation behind Meta’s KolourOptik® Stripe and its toolkit of customisable authentication effects with 3D parallax (see HN May 2023).

KURZ, the leading supplier of security foils with diffractive features, has produced a new reference book with a wide selection of images of banknotes that have utilised its KINEGRAM® technology.

The recent HSP (High Security Printing™) Latin America conference in Nassau, the Bahamas gave holographic foil manufacturer Hueck Folien the perfect platform to showcase its portfolio of stripes and threads for banknotes.

Meta Materials Inc. (previously Nanotech Security Corp) has been a pioneer in banknote OVD (Optically Variable Device) technology for the past decade with innovations in micro-, nano- and now plasmonic structures. The company has also developed in-house secure foil production so that it can offer banknote stripes direct to customers.

The prestigious Regional Banknote and ID Document of the Year Awards form part of the industry’s High Security Printing™ EMEA conference. This year’s event was held on Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, with the awards presented at a special ceremony in the stunning grounds of the W Hotel, during the conference dinner on 8 March 2023.

The process of holographic mastering can be a combination of art and science, which makes it interesting to explore the thinking behind the subject matter chosen by the originator.

There are four items to report in this round up of recent banknote issues using holographic, or other diffractive optically variable, features.