State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Yaseen Anwar has said the main goal of security printing for the central bank is to prevent forgery, tampering and counterfeiting of banknotes.
“We must stay ahead of counterfeiters and protect the integrity of our currency,” he said after inaugurating the upgraded security ink manufacturing facility of SICPA (Société Industrielle et Commerciale de Produits Agricoles) Pakistan here on Thursday.
SICPA is a leading provider of security inks and solutions for most of the world’s banknotes.
Anwar observed that soundness of a nation’s currency was essential to the soundness of its economy. Together with partners at Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC) and law enforcement agencies, he said, the central bank continuously monitored counterfeiting threats and made re-design decisions based on these threats.
Advanced security features involving ink play a very important role in defeating the sophisticated counterfeiters and curb the circulation of fake currency.
“SICPA’s security ink technology plays a vital role in making our banknotes difficult to counterfeit through state-of-the-art security features such as the optical variable ink design, infra-red ink designs, UV fluorescent ink and SICPA Talk ink images,” he added.
Anwar said Intaglio security feature on banknotes was preferred by the people because they could feel the raised surface by touching the banknote.
The governor said all new design banknotes had machine-readable features that were useful for processing and detection of counterfeiting through note processing machines and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
Published in The Express Tribune, March 9th, 2012.
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