We thank all those who nominated their important projects for IACA’s Excellence in Currency 2019 Coin Awards. All IACA delegates are urged to vote for the winners, which will be announced in Rome on October 15th, 2019, in conjunction with The Coin Conference. Voting will be open between August 19th and September 8th, 2019.

The finalists are:
Best New Circulating Coin or Coin Series
• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas: New Generation Currency Coin Series
• Central Bank of Mauritania/La Monnaie de Paris: 20 Ouguiya Tricolor Circulating Coin
• United States Mint: “W” Quarter-dollar Circulating Coin

Best New Circulating Coin Related Public Education Program, Website or App
• Reserve Bank of New Zealand: Armistice Day Coin Public Awareness Campaign
• Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas: Coin-Ed Program for New Philippine Coins
• United States Mint: H.I.P. Pocket Change Website

Best New Coin Product, Feature or Distribution Innovation
• The Royal Canadian Mint: Tri-Metal Security Test Token
• The Singapore Mint: Coin Visual Inspection Machine
• The Singapore Mint: Promotion of Coin Recirculation via Integrated Coin Processing and Management

Best New Commemorative or Test Circulating Coin Issued at Face Value
• Reserve Bank of New Zealand: Armistice Day coin
• The South African Reserve Bank: Nelson Mandela R5 Commemorative coin
• The People’s Bank of China /China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation: China’s High-speed Railway Commemorative Circulating Coin

The Role and Ambitions of the International Association of Currency Affairs

Currency News™ spoke with Richard Wall during the High Security Print Latin America  event in Costa Rica about his election as the Chairman of the IACA Board of Directors this year. We wanted to understand his thoughts on its role and his ambition for the  organization, which was established in 2004 and has ‘linking central banks and industry to give back to the cash community’ as its mission.

Richard Wall was Managing Director at the Bank of Canada until he retired in August 2018. He ran the Currency Department, having worked for 28 years at the Bank. His last banknote design projects during his tenure were the creation and launch of the 2017 commemorative banknote celebrating the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation and the $10 Viola Desmond vertical design banknote. Richard has served as an IACA Board
member since 2015 2013.

Q: Why did you take on the position of Chairman of IACA?
A: After 28 interesting years with the Bank of Canada, the last 20 in the Currency Department, I wanted to stay involved, to stay in touch with the banknote industry. As Managing Director, Currency, at the Bank of Canada our goal had been to get the most of co-operative relationships with our suppliers in order to make better, more secure banknotes.In 1998 I became Project Director for the new series designated ‘The Canadian Journey Series’. It was clear that to be successful we needed to develop and rely on a number of our suppliers. We needed to maximise the development of our partnerships with these partners to achieve the best possible design and efficient production processes.

Read Full Interview