Note Printing Australia
Note Printing Australia (NPA) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) that produces banknotes and passports. It was corporatised in July 1998 and is located in Craigieburn, Melbourne. NPA has its origins as a subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank and was established in 1913 to print banknotes for Australia. After printing paper banknotes for Australia for 75 years, NPA introduced the first polymer banknote technology in 1988.
Contents
NPA polymer banknotes
<templatestyles src="Module:Hatnote/styles.css"></templatestyles>
In the mid 1960s Australia was hit by forgeries of the newly introduced $10 paper decimal note.[1][2] These forged notes were of a high quality and difficult to identify.[citation needed] In response, the Reserve Bank of Australia and Note Printing Australia commissioned the CSIRO to find better ways to secure the Australian currency. This led to the development of the polymer note, which the NPA took into production and introduced in 1988.[1] NPA has since focused heavily in promoting the benefits of the polymer technology they developed. According to internal RBA documents, NPA's printing costs in 2012 were 34¢ per note.[3]
Printing equipment
Note Printing Australia is a security printing facility, that uses a number of special printers not available to the general printing industry. These include printing presses manufactured by KBA-NotaSys.[citation needed]
2007 corruption allegations
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. A secret memo sent to the "Deputy Governor RBA" in 2007 detailing bribery and corruption within a Reserve Bank subsidiary was withheld from the police, Federal Parliament and the government. The revelation of the five-page "private and confidential" memo ties RBA governor Glenn Stevens and his recently retired deputy, Ric Battellino, to one of the worst corporate corruption cover-ups in Australian history. The 2007 memo shows that almost two years before a bribery exposed by The Age forced the RBA to call in police, Battellino was given a detailed and explosive memo cataloging bribery and corruption inside Note Printing Australia, a wholly owned and supervised subsidiary of the bank.[4]
2014 mention in Victorian Supreme Court suppression order
NPA was mentioned in a leaked suppression order of the Victorian Supreme Count in Melbourne. The order, which forbids publication of corruption allegations against named government officials of Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, includes a specific exemption allowing the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to pass banned information on to NPA.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- Note Printing in Australia (RBA) (~1988) Published by Nucolorve Productions Pty Ltd, ISBN 0-85858-097-7
- Australia's New $5 Note (RBA) - leaflet.
- Australian Currency Notes - How they are made (RBA) Leaflet.
External links
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
