In their proposed 2012 fiscal plan, the Thai government is attempting to borrow Bt400 billion to finance the budget deficit and intends to borrow another Bt400 billion in order to finance restoration projects that are necessary to help rebuild the country after it was struck by major flooding in the spring of 2011. On top of this, the government has also announced efforts to shift the public debt of Bt1.14 trillion to the Bank of Thailand’s account.

“The government’s plan to force the central bank to repay the debts of the Financial Institution Development Fund would result in the printing of more money for the government,” said Democrat MP Sansern Samalapa. “People would be happy for a while, for there would be no need to pay taxes, but then the banknotes would become worthless paper.”

Printing more money than needed is a dangerous road, writes MSNBC Senior Producer John W. Schoen.

“If you create more currency without raising the value of the whatever backs that currency, the value of the currency drops,” he says. “Currency is really just a piece of paper that stands for something of value. Increasing the amount of currency without increasing the value it represents just makes the currency worth less than when you started.”

Samalap provided examples of Latin American countries who tried to undergo similar debt shifts, and who ended up in situations of hyperinflation leading to the collapse of their economies.

Michael K. Salemi, an economics professor at the University of North Carolina, provides an account of one of these situations, which occurred in Bolivia.

“The Bolivian hyperinflation is a case in point. Eliana Cardoso explains that in 1982 Hernán Siles Suazo took power as head of a leftist coalition that wanted to satisfy demands for more government spending on domestic programs but faced growing debt service obligations and falling prices for its tin exports,” he writes. “The Bolivian government responded to this situation by printing money. Faced with a shortage of funds, it chose to raise revenue through the inflation tax instead of raising income taxes or reducing other government spending.”

Hyperinflation, Salemi says, always reduces an economy’s efficiency due to the fact that it drives people away from monetary transactions.

SOURCES:
The Nation: “Govnt Debt Policy Will Make Currency ‘Worthless’”
MSNBC Answer Desk: “US Budget Deficit Fix: Print More Money?”
The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics: “Hyperinflation”

According to an article published by RT.com, central banks throughout Europe are preparing contingency plans evaluating their needs for additional printing capacity should the euro – a singular currency shared by seventeen countries – come to an end.

The Central Bank of Ireland, for example, is assessing the capacity of their banknote facilities where they currently manufacture new euro bills. Last year, Ireland printed 127.5 million 10-euro notes.

“The bank’s printing capacities may not meet demand should the country need to come up with a hasty replacement for the euro,” RT.com said. “Officials are discussing reactivating old printers or
enlisting a private contractor to do the job”

Last week, in a segment that aired on PRI’s The World, banknote manufacturers and economists also said the industry could see some increased businesses if the euro collapses.

But it’s not all good news. A source from the Bank of England told the Wall Street Journal they were “concerned that if the eurozone unravels, the plant would be overwhelmed with orders and would not be able to print pounds. Britain is reportedly considering steps to ensure that such contingency would not cause damage to the UK’s own interests.”

Among other countries, Switzerland, Montenegro, Bosnia and Latvia are all beginning to look at post-euro plans should the currency bloc fail. To do that, RT reports, “they are now casting around for a new reference point – probably the German mark.”

SOURCES:
RT.com: “Plan B: Printing Presses on Standby To Beat Euro’s Demise”
PRI’s The World: “Making Money by Making Money”

Ian Jones, chief executive of Volunteer Cornwall, says the move may be consider a “radical idea,” but argues the move away from the British pound could be beneficial for the community in the long run.

“Communities create wealth but too often it is siphoned out. We have to keep wealth local,” he told the BBC. “”It’s no good if we endlessly talk about our problems, we need to start doing something positive now if we are to avoid being at the mercy of the global storm which is currently raging.”

Cornwall is a unitary authority in the UK. Considered a “ceremonial country,” the community has a single tier and is responsible for all local government functions. Typically, unitary authorities cover towns or cities that are large enough to function independently of county or other regional
administration.

Part of that independence can include the establishment governing a separate currency.

Other counties such as Totnes, Devon, and Lewes have already done this whereby Sterling is swapped for notes accepted by the town’s traders.

Ben Brangwyn, co-founder of Transition Town Totnes and part of the currency group that launched this localized currency initiative, says it is an ideal system for the well-being of small counties such as Cornwall.

“Local money is much more mindful when it circulates in the local economy – it is not a replacement but can plug the gap,” he says. “”It gives people more control over how services are procured.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Cornwall instituted its own currency. Several Cornish mining areas in the 19th century set up their own bands and issued their own banknotes, and in 1974 banknotes were issued by pressure group the Cornish Stannary Parliament partly “to raise money to aid it in the restitution of Cornwall’s legal right to partially govern itself”.

SOURCES:
BBC News: “Call To Adopt Cornwall Currency”
The Telegraph: “Cornish Groups Want To Dump Sterling and Adopt Own Currency”
This Is Cornwall: “Back To The Future As Plan For ‘Local’ Currency Is Mooted To ‘Save Economy’

The change to the currency comes as counterfeiting worldwide becomes easier to effectuate. Colour copiers, scanners and digital imaging programming all contribute to a rising ease of counterfeiting, causing central banks around the world to enhance their banknotes with high-tech security features.

The case is no different in Swaziland. The new banknote series – which will see new E10, E20, E50, E100 and E200 notes – will increase the quality of the banknotes and add more features to prevent counterfeiting.

“Banknote durability and security technology has advanced significantly since the issuing of the current series of notes in 1999,” said Governor Martin Dlamini in a press statement in April. “The Central Bank of Swaziland takes pride in its responsibility to provide high quality banknotes and ensuring public confidence in our money by minimising counterfeiting. We have spared no effort in making the new series of notes as durable and as secure as possible.”

As is the case when many new banknotes are introduced, a big part of the new currency launch in Swaziland is a public education initiative. Posters, flyers and other educational material will be produced by the CBS and put on public display at public institutions such as banks, post offices, and hospitals in order to ensure the public knows what security features to look for on the new notes.

This is the first currency overhaul Swaziland has undertaken in over ten years. Their last series was introduced in 1999.

Though old banknotes will still be accepted as legal tender for now, the CBS says they expect to phase out the old series gradually.

SOURCE:
Times of Swaziland: “Central Bank of Swaziland To Introduce New Banknotes”

The Pixel Watermark not only produces different shades, it also makes the images - like this angel's wing on a commemorative Mexican 200-peso not - appear 3D

This article is part of a continuing series that looks at security features in development for the security paper industry.

One of the most familiar – and recognizable – banknote security features is the watermark. First introduced in the 13th century in Italy, a watermark is an image or pattern on the security paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when held against the light.

A watermark can take many forms, but some of the more identifiable marks are usually found elsewhere on the bill. The Canadian $20 bill, for example, features a watermark which is a smaller version of the note’s portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, while the new American $100 bill’s watermark is a smaller portrait of Benjamin Franklin.

Despite the fact that watermarks are one of the most common security features for banknotes, and one of the most effective anti-counterfeit devices, some countries have taken watermark technology a step further to prevent currency forgery.

In 2009, the Bank of Mexico was the first to introduce the world to a new watermark called the Pixel Watermark. Consisting of patterns of dark dots of varying sizes on light backgrounds, the Pixel Watermark sets itself apart from regular watermarks in that the colouring of the pixels in the image creates an almost 3D effect.

Though the first bill to feature the Pixel Watermark was a commemorative 200-peso note, countries in Asia and Latin America have since adopted the security feature.

And the Pixel Watermark is picking up steam elsewhere. Recently, the security device won the award for the Best New Currency Feature at the 2010 Excellence in Currency Awards held in Buenos Aires. The watermark beat out other high-tech, new-to-the-industry security features like the Depth Image, a 3D hologram with strong colour switching and contrast.

SOURCES:
Currency News: “2010 Excellency in Currency Award Winners”
“Watermark”
Banknote News: “Pixel Watermark Debuts on Mexico 200-Peso Commemorative”
Bank of Canada: “Security Features”
Personal Money Store: “New 100 Dollar Bill Debuts To Help Fight Counterfeit Rings”
“Depth Image Hologram”

Analyst Brian Pow predicted continued growth in Fortress Paper

Last week, Patt Bolland – host of BNN’s Trading Day – talked to Brian Pow, vice president of research and equity analyst for Acumen Capital, about Fortress Paper’s new PM1 upgrade and discussed how this change will have a positive effect on the company’s future.

Watch the clip HERE (the Fortress Paper segment begins around 3:10).

SOURCE:
BNN: Trading Day

North Korea's won has rapidly depreciated to Chinese traders

Nearly a month after North Korea redenominated its currency at a rate of 100 to 1 (read North Korea changes currency and rates 100 to 1), North Korea changes currency and rates 100 to 1), its international value has also begun to plunge.

Reports from South Korea’s Yonhap news agency this week stated the new North Korean currency was trading in neighboring China at a rate of 1,000 won for 1 yuan (the Chinese currency).

Shortly after the currency shift in early December, Chinese trade rates were steady around 50 to 1. Since then, the value of North Korean won has been rapidly depreciating.

The government of North Korea cited the country’s decade-plus run of economic hardship and increasing evidence of runaway inflation as their reason for redenomination, though many critics agree it was a direct attack on emerging private markets.

Citizens were only given one week to exchange their old currency for new currency in December, and were only permitted to exchange 150,000 won regardless of how much won they owned or had saved.

On New Year’s Day, North Korea banned the use of any international currency within its borders.

SOURCES:
AFP: “North Korea banknotes plunge in value: report”
Argentina Star: “North Korean banknotes find no favour with locals”

New Jersey issued this six-pound note in 1761, during the French and Indian War. It warned "To counterfeit is Death," because counterfeiting was deemed a capital offense. Courtesy History.org

*This article is the first in a three-part series on counterfeiting.

The act of counterfeiting is as old as money itself. Plaguing ancient Rome, empirical China, newborn America, and many other nations over the past 2500 years, the illegal activity came hand in hand with the creation of money.

Even prior to the invention of coin and paper currency, counterfeiting was a popular form of trickery. In Prehispanic Mexico, for example, Cacao traders would extract the contents of the bean and substitute the valuable innards of the plant with soil.

In the ancient world, of course, currency was invented hundreds of years before these Mexican ruses. Real currency made its debut in the form of coins around 700 B.C. and counterfeiting soon followed. Coins had not yet been marked or etched with images or slogans, so reproducing coins out of less valuable metal was easy.

The problem became so severe in places like ancient Rome, that “it was considered treasonous and punishable by death if the perpetrator was caught. This was because many believed that anyone who disturbed the market with fake money was putting the nation’s economy and its general stability and strength in serious jeopardy.”

Those sentiments were echoed by the Chinese upon the invention of paper money, which appeared on the global currency scene during the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th Century. In order to prevent counterfeiting, “the Emperor ordered that the following be printed on all banknotes: ‘Counterfeiting shall be punished by death. Informers shall receive 250 taels of silver and the criminal’s property.’”

Throughout history, however, counterfeiting has not only come at the hands of criminals. The British government “produced large quantities of bogus assignats to undermine revolutionary France,” and helped the process of devaluating “Confederate paper money by printing it themselves and sending it to the South” in pre-revolution America to the point where Confederate banknotes were almost worthless.

By the end of the eighteenth century, counterfeiting was flourishing. During the Civil War, “one-third to one-half of the currency in circulation was counterfeit.”

Coin counterfeiting had become so advanced in the United States that “when the first federal coins were issued by the US government in the 1780s, they had the dies cut by an ex-counterfeiter in order to deter the practice.”

Paper money in the US was also being easily counterfeited because of merchants’ inexperience with the currency. One historian explains: “Rural colonists were not very familiar with paper money because their daily lives did not revolve around commercial transactions; furthermore, they had a deep prejudice against it because they did not regard it as ‘real’ money. Because merchants lacked familiarity with authentic paper money, they could be fooled by some surprisingly amateurish counterfeits.”

Though anti-counterfeiting measures were being developed throughout the world by the nineteenth century – particularly in America – counterfeiting continued.

One of the most professional cases of counterfeiting was carried out by the Germans in World War II who “had control of expert counterfeiters imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and even manufactured very convincing paper, which can be more difficult to forge than a banknote’s appearance.”

The counterfeits produced by the Germans in the first half of the twentieth century were so good in fact that when The Bank of England managed to obtain some falsified British pounds, they said “the only way in which [the fake banknotes] differed from the real thing was that the real thing wasn’t as good.”

Today, thanks to modern advances in scanning and printing technology, counterfeiting paper banknotes is perhaps easier than ever. Because of this, security features are becoming an – if not the most – important part of banknote design.

In Part 2 of Counterfeiting: A Three-Part Series, we will take a look at the history of security features and identify how different security features have evolved over time to prevent counterfeiting.

SOURCES:
“History of Counterfeit Money”
“A Short History of Money”
“History of Counterfeiting”
“History of Counterfeiting”
“The History of Counterfeit in Russia”
“The Golden Age of Counterfeiting”
“History of Counterfeiting in Mexico”

Nearly 200,000 counterfeit euro20 banknotes were seized in the last six months says the European Central Bank

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced today that the number of fake euro banknotes seized in the last six months rose by eight per cent from the first half of the year.

“In the second half of 2009 a total of 447,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation,” an ECB statement said.

Though the increase is significant, ECB officials say it is a step up from the first half of 2009, which saw a 17 per cent increase in seized counterfeit notes.

The most frequently forged bills were the euro20, which accounted for 47 per cent of the fakes, and the euro50, which accounted for 39 per cent.

The euro contains many security features that attempt to foil counterfeiters. Specific watermarks, security threads, hologram foil stripes & patches, iridescent stripes, and colour-shifting inks all play their part in deterring the reproduction of fake notes.

Though the ECB’s statement demonstrated concern at the growing ability to produce successful counterfeit euros, the Central Bank also remained steadfast in believing it was a manageable problem.

“When compared to the 12.8 billion genuine banknotes in circulation,” the ECB statement said, “the proportion of counterfeits is still very low.”

Nearly one million counterfeit euros were seized and withdrawn from circulation in 2009.

SOURCES:
Chicago Sun Times: “Amount of counterfeit euros up.”
“Fake euro seizures rise by 8%: ECB”