The Canadian Journey: an Odyssey Into the Complex World of Bank Note Production*
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The Canadian Journey: An Odyssey into the Complex World of Bank Note Production* Jill Moxley, Helen Meubus, and Maura Brown, Communications Department • The Bank of Canada is responsible for supplying he creation of secure, attractive, and durable Canadians with bank notes that are secure and bank notes has always been challenging, but readily accepted by the public. Note security has never more so than in the past decade, T because of the rapidly improving technology always been the primary consideration behind the available to counterfeiters. This article traces the deve- design and artwork of bank notes. lopment of the Bank’s new anti-counterfeiting strategy • To date, the Bank has developed a new series of as it evolved in parallel with the production of the new bank notes approximately every 15 years as a way Canadian Journey series of notes. of staying ahead of counterfeiting. To provide some background, the counterfeiting envi- • Rapid advances in computer technology that ronment that evolved in the decades prior to the launch began in the late 1980s have changed the of the Canadian Journey series is described, together counterfeiting environment. In the process of with details of the security features used in previous designing and producing the Canadian Journey note series. This is followed by a discussion of the series of bank notes at the start of this decade, the challenges encountered in developing the new series and the Bank’s response. The final section reviews the Bank faced several challenges, including a sudden valuable lessons that the Bank learned as it developed surge in counterfeiting activities. the Canadian Journey series. • These challenges prompted the Bank to develop a new approach to its currency program. In 2002, Background: Counterfeiting the Bank adopted a comprehensive strategy to and Confidence address counterfeiting: complementing increased Because bank note design has always been focused on bank note security with extensive public ensuring that notes are accepted by the people who education and an intensified focus on law use them and that public confidence is maintained, enforcement. security has been the main consideration in the design • This strategy, which involves active collaboration and artwork of bank notes (Bank of Canada 2006; with the Bank’s partners in the retail, law- Lefebvre-Manthorp 1988). Throughout the nineteenth enforcement, and legal communities, has reduced and most of the twentieth century, along with the specialized paper on which bank notes are printed, counterfeiting and increased public confidence in Canadian bank notes. • The Canadian Journey series combines world- class security features and special user features * Pierre Duguay, Charles Spencer, and Ianthi Vayid provided valuable guidance in the preparation of this article. Thanks are also due to Lea-Anne with designs that represent the aspirations and Solomonian, and to Micheline Lefebvre-Manthorp, Harry Hooper, and Robert accomplishments of Canadians. Dolomont, who supplied useful background material. BANK OF CANADA REVIEW • AUTUMN 2007 47 the artwork itself was a major security feature. The using the costly and sophisticated equipment availa- ornate engraving and intaglio1 created designs that ble in some offices and copy shops. As the 1990s pro- made notes difficult to reproduce, thus protecting gressed, so did technological innovation. Before long, them from counterfeiting.2 anyone with a personal computer and an inkjet printer could produce passable facsimiles of the images on bank notes. With the 1986 Birds of Canada series, the Bank intro- Security has been the main duced a state-of-the-art security feature: the OSD, or consideration in the design and optical security device, which anticipated the use of artwork of bank notes. colour photocopiers for counterfeiting. A rectangular foil patch applied to the upper left-hand corner of the higher-denomination notes ($20 and up), the OSD shifted from gold to green when the note was tilted Since opening for business in 1935, the Bank has deve- and was extremely difficult to reproduce. loped a new note design approximately every 15 years, Developed in partnership with the National Research because experience has shown that familiarity with a Council, the OSD was first applied to the $50 note in design allows counterfeiters to produce increasingly December 1989. As a security feature, it was easy to sophisticated copies that are accepted by the public. check, and because its colour-shifting property could For example, it was not until 13 years after it was issued not be reproduced by colour copiers or scanners, it that the 1954 Canadian Landscape series was heavily protected the high-denomination notes in the Birds of counterfeited. In 1973, counterfeiting of the $50 note Canada series from counterfeiting for most of the 1990s. from the 1954 series pushed counterfeiting levels to over 950 counterfeits detected per million genuine Two other security features introduced with the Birds $50 notes in circulation. For many years afterwards, of Canada series were not apparent to the public. These retailers were reluctant to accept the $50 note. In 1973, were an anti-copier feature, which causes commercial the $5 note from the 1954 series was also heavily coun- photocopiers to recognize and refuse to copy a bank terfeited.3 note, and a digital watermark, which has the same effect on most personal computer printers and scan- The Bank responded to these increased levels of coun- ners. However, it took some time for machines that terfeiting with the multicoloured Scenes of Canada could read these codes to become widely deployed. series, issued between 1969 and 1979. Because the range of tints beneath the dominant colours on these notes could not be easily reproduced through offset Challenges in Producing a New Note printing, the number of counterfeits fell dramatically Series (Chart 1). The development of the Canadian Journey series took Before the 1980s, counterfeiting was largely the place in this environment of rapidly accelerating tech- domain of organized criminals, because the expert nological progress. In 1997, the Bank established a skills and expensive equipment required to produce currency development team and, the following year, counterfeits could only be financed by the extensive began a design partnership with its two security distribution networks maintained by such groups. printers: BA Banknote (now BA International Inc.) and The development of colour photocopiers in the 1980s, the Canadian Bank Note Company, Limited. however, meant that counterfeits could be produced The team faced several key issues in developing the new note series: an environment of budgetary restraint in the public sector; the search for a more secure sub- 1. Intaglio is a printing technique in which an image from a design is cut or 4 etched into a metal plate, resulting in the image being reproduced in raised strate; the choice of a design theme; the need to improve ink. the readability of the notes by the visually impaired; 2. For an illustrated history of bank note design at the Bank of Canada, and a surge in counterfeiting. In managing these chal- including details on the design and security features of previous note series, see Bank of Canada (2006). 4. Substrate is a term used in the security printing industry to refer to security 3. Quarterly statistics on counterfeiting by series and by denomination are paper that in itself offers basic security features such as fibre, a security published in Table B4 of the monthly Bank of Canada Banking and Financial Sta- thread, and a watermark. Substrates can also be made of polymer or consist of tistics, now available at<http://www.bankofcanada.ca/pdf/bfs.pdf>. layers that sometimes sandwich an inner layer of plastic. 48 BANK OF CANADA REVIEW • AUTUMN 2007 Chart 1 Counterfeit Canadian Bank Notes Passed for Every One Million Genuine Notes in Circulation (PPM) Parts per million 500 500 450 450 400 400 350 350 300 300 250 250 200 200 150 150 100 100 50 50 0 0 1960 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999 2002 2005 1969–79 Scenes of Canada Series Estimated: 1969–79 Scenes of Canada Series 1986–91 Birds of Canada Series Estimated: 1986–91 Birds of Canada Series 2001–02 Canadian Journey Series - Maple Leaves Estimated: 2001–02 Canadian Journey Series - Maple Leaves 2004–06 Canadian Journey Series - Striped Series not identified (likely 1954 Canadian Landscape Series) lenges, the Bank learned several lessons, which it the development of a new series before obtaining incorporated into a new anti-counterfeiting strategy, approval to go ahead in 1997. But the emphasis on cost discussed later in this article. cutting in the mid-1990s, as well as the influence of a number of other factors, affected some of the Bank’s choices as it moved forward with plans for the new series. Counterfeiting levels had been relatively low The development of the Canadian through to the mid-1990s, and the increasing popularity Journey series took place in this of debit cards suggested that there would be a reduc- environment of rapidly accelerating tion in the use of cash. Some financial observers were even musing about the possibility of a cashless society.5 technological progress. The Bank reasoned that if Canada was moving in that direction, perhaps it should be cautious about investing in costly research and development for bank notes. Budgetary restraint Having spent millions of dollars over 16 years to de- velop the OSD, the Bank concluded that it might be In 1995, the federal government began a program more cost effective to buy products developed by the review and a sweeping cost-cutting exercise to restore bank note industry. It focused its efforts on producing a fiscal balance. The Bank embraced this policy direc- new series of economical notes that would not only tion and began its own review of operations in order be more secure, but would last longer in circulation to find more economical ways of conducting its busi- and have a life-cycle cost per note the same as, or lower ness.