Georgia Wins Best Banknote Award 2016

The National Bank of Georgia was awarded the Best Regional Banknote of the Year 2016 at the High Security Printing Europe conference. The upgraded Lari currency series shared first place with Kazakhstan’s 20,000 Tenge banknote. Reconnaissance, the organizers of the Conference, revealed the winners by their outstanding achievement in design, technical sophistication and security of banknote series in Bucharest, Romania, on March 15.

The Georgian winners were the new 20 and 50 Lari banknotes which went into circulation in February 2016. The new designs were based on the existing series, featuring Georgia’s cultural and historic heritage, but were given a distinctly different and more modern appearance. The new banknotes are fitted with safety signs, obtained as a result of a high-tech process, which are easily noticeable to the consumer. They also include plotted plates to facilitate the visually impaired to identify denominations.

Reconnaisance uploaded on its official website other advantages of the new Lari series. “The new notes include a holographic stripe in which the image matches the portrait on the note, iridescent stripe and a demutualized color shift window thread. The mould-made watermark also matches the portrait, and is supplemented by an electrotype with the denomination and the currency symbol for the Lari. Additional security features include visible and UV fluorescent fibres, latent image, see-through feature and microtext.”

The National Bank of Georgia noted that this was the first redesign in the currency’s 20 year history. The upgraded 5, 10 and 100 Lari banknotes will soon be released into circulation throughout Georgia.

The Regional Banknote of the Year Award is an international award among European and CIS countries. Other countries nominated in the Award, alongside the Lari and Kazakh Tenge, were the new 20 Euro by the European Central Bank; the Swedish Krona, new series by the Swedish National Bank; the new 20,000 Forint by the Hungarian National Bank; the new 200 Shekel by the Bank of Israel; the 500 Hryvnia by the National Bank of Ukraine; the 100 Jubilee Ruble banknote by the Central Bank of Russia; and the banknote series by the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus.

Eka Karsaulidze