Bitcoin, the world’s first free market, decentralised global currency, has surpassed US$1,000 (£613) for the first time according to MTGox, one of the virtual currency’s main exchanges. Bitcoin has seen fast growth since its introduction in 2008, allowing users the ability to make payments from person to person anonymously. This has caused some criticism, with…
The European Central Bank (ECB) announced that a new Europa series €10 banknote will be unveiled on January 13, 2014 and issued later in the year. The Partnership Program, held by the ECB and the national Central Banks (NCB) in the Euro area on November 26, 2013, aimed to help banknote equipment manufacturers and suppliers,…
Today sees the launch of a new online payment system from Visa. It allows consumers to make online payments “simply and securely”. At a time where online purchases are rapidly increasing, businesses are realising how important it is to make things easy for their customers. The use of smartphones and electronic tablets has been a…
In a paper published in September by the Department of Computing, University of Surrey, UK, researchers demonstrated how contactless payments could be interferred with, effectively “eavesdropping” on the payment systems which use Near Field Communication (NFC) / Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to transfer payment data. With the required technology being increasingly made available, be…
Following on from the launch of Google Wallet in 2011, Google is now introducing a prepaid debit card which will allow customers to purchase goods at stores and withdraw cash from ATMs. Google Wallet is a smartphone app which allows users to make online payments and transfer funds to other users. It is a digital…
20 million notes will be produced in total, which have a vertical design depicting a snowboarder and several venues in the Sochi Olympic Park, including the Fisht Olympic Stadium on the reverse of the note. The national flags of countries participating in the games form part of the design on the front of the note.…
On November 15th, 2013, the Bank of Guyana unveiled the new £5,000 banknote. This is an additional denomination to the current series existing of the £20, £100, £500 amd £1,000. It is due to go into circulation on December 9th, 2013. The face of the banknote displays a map of the country with its natural resources,…
It has recently been announced that Pamplona Capital Management has entered exclusive talks to acquire Innovia Films. Innovia Films, a global manufacturer of speciality products for the packaging and security markets – Biaxially Oriented Polypropylene (BOPP) and Cellulose based films – currently supplies polymer to be used as a banknote substrate to around 20 Central…
The Bank of Canada has now completed the issue of its first polymer banknote series. The release of the new $5 and $10 polymer banknotes follow the gradual release of the previous $100, $50 and $20 denominations. Like the previous versions, the Bank of Canada state that the main motivation for the change to polymer…