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The
Reserve Bank Act 1959 confers
on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) the responsibility for the
production and issue, reissue and cancellation of Australia's currency
notes. This is effected through the RBA's Note Issue Department.
Australia's currency notes are printed by Note Printing Australia
Limited, a separately incorporated wholly owned subsidiary of the RBA,
located at Craigieburn in Victoria.
Between
1992 and 1996, the Bank progressively introduced a new series of notes
to replace the original decimal notes, which were first issued in 1966.
The new notes are printed on polymer (plastic) substrate instead of
traditional paper. Polymer currency note technology was developed in
Australia, jointly by the Bank and the CSIRO.
Australia
is the first country in the world to replace all its paper notes with
polymer notes. The Bank made the move to polymer to make Australia's
notes more secure against counterfeiting, which had been on the increase
as modern reprographic equipment became more readily available. Polymer
notes are also more durable than paper notes (lasting around four times
as long), are cleaner and more hygienic, and can be recycled at the end
of their useful life into a range of plastic products.Here find some
security features accoding to polymer paper. |