              
Note Printing Australia's main production plant, in Melbourne.
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POLYMER BANKNOTES
POLYMERS BANISH DIRTY MONEY
In Australia, the only people who trade in paper money are antiques dealers.
Polymer based banknotes have entirely replaced their paper equivalents since they were introduced into Australia in 1988, when they were the world's first non-fibrous currency.
They are clean, attractive, recyclable and they last four times as long as paper notes. They also lend themselves to rapid and efficient machine processing.
Importantly, the polymer substrate of the new Australian designed currency permits sophisticated anti-counterfeiting measures, such as Optically Variable Devices (OVDs) to be built into the notes. By contrast, paper money is comparatively easy to forge now that high quality reprographic technologies are available in every high street printshop. A very large percentage of US hundred-dollar bills available in Europe, for example, are believed to be counterfeit.
Australia is the world leader in polymer banknote technology, thanks to pioneering work done by CSIRO. Building on that technology, the Reserve Bank of Australia's wholly owned subsidiary, Note Printing Australia (NPA), is today a highly successful free-standing business with 200 staff and important export contracts.
Most recently NPA was awarded the contract to produce all of New Zealand's bank notes on polymer substrate. Australian developed polymer notes have already been introduced into a number of other countries, including Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Kuwait.
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A selection of polymer banknotes from around the world.
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Catalogue Contents
