The Awards for Excellence in Currency were made public recently, at the annual Currency Conference in Bangkok. Even tough the Currency Conference has been running for some years, this is the first time excellence in currency has been honoured with awards, and the event itself did not disappoint. The awards were presented by IACA chairman Rick Haycock at the close of yesterday's general conference session, who talked about the extremely high calibre of all the entries, specifically considering that this was the inaugural event for these awards. He extended thanks to all those who sent in nominations, to the award sponsors Currency News and the IACA Awards Committee for researching all the entries and short listing the finalists.

    Recently retired as Director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Thomas Ferguson won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Tom was responsible, as Director, for the two BEP printing facilities that produced an average 9 billion bank notes per year. He has appeared on numerous broadcasts and in many printed interviews extolling the use of currency and the need to understand the layers of security offered to protect the public from counterfeit money.

    The winner of the Best New Bank note Award was The National Bank of Kazakhstan. Runners up were the Central Bank of Sweden, for the new 1,000 Kronor launched in March 2006, and the Bank of Mexico, for the new 50 Peso bank note which was issued in November 2006 as a polymer note incorporating the new G-switch™ function. The complicated and highly secure new series, released in November 2006 includes the first use of bank note printer De La Rue's Optiks® feature on the top denomination 10,000 Tenge to help prevent counterfeit money.

    The Royal Canadian Mint for the result of its collaboration with the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation got the Best New Coin Award. This Canadian quarter (25 cents) has the image of a pink ribbon in its centre. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, for its lighter and smaller plated steel 10, 20 and 50 cent pieces and the British Royal Mint for the UK Brunel £2 coin were the runners up in this section.

    Crane's Motion™ got the hotly contested award for the Best New Currency Feature. This optically variable feature involving a micro-lens array for security threads first appeared on the Swedish 1,000 Kronor bank note and has recently been selected as the primary overt feature for the new US$100. G-switch™ (from Securency) and Varifeye® (from Louisenthal) were worthy competitors who both received runner up awards. All the competitors for this award have made great strides in raising the bar to counterfeit money.

    KBA GIORI won the Best New Currency Product, Process or System Award for ONE™, and the award for Best Currency Public Education Program was won by the BEP for its $10 campaign. For more information visit www.currencyaffairs.org .