Laughing all the way to the bank

A fluttering, laughing kookaburra will reveal whether a new polymer $20 note in your hand is genuine.

Raised bumps to help the blind and low-vision community, and a new clear window and kookaburra for security purposes, on the new $20 note. Picture: RBA.

A fluttering, laughing kookaburra will reveal whether a new polymer $20 note in your hand is genuine. It’s part of the technology on the new note detailed to The Australian by the company that designed and developed its security features.

Banks and ATMs will start distributing the new banknotes from next Wednesday.

The new $20 is the latest in the second generation of polymer notes that feature a clear plastic section down the middle.

It’s more than 30 years since Australia introduced polymer notes and three years since the first of the new series, the current $5 note, hit the streets.

Stephen Pratt, managing director for Australia and New Zealand at Leonhard Kurz Australia, said the new generation notes were introduced to keep ahead of the counterfeiters.

The second generation $20 again features Mary Reibey, a convicted horse thief who became a successful businesswoman and charity worker after being deported to Australia as a convict. Picture: RBA.

New-age printers and high-resolution scanners were increasingly making it possible to forge the older polymer notes. The clear window found on those notes had been reproduced in forgeries of Australian $50 notes found in Colombia in 2006,.

German company Kurz and OVD Kinegram have been responsible for designing and manufacturing the note’s security features, as they do in almost 100 countries.

“We’re the major provider of security for anybody using polymer banknotes,” Mr Pratt said.

He added that the security on these banknotes was essentially the same as on the $5, $10 and $50 notes already available, but there were differences.

“They actually changed the type of wattle that features and the bird that features, so in the new $20 note, it will feature the laughing kookaburra as the bird and when you move the note you’ll see it fluttering its wings as though flying.

“You shift it front to back or side to side and you’ll see movement on the note itself.”

The kookaburra on the clear strip flutters when you shuffle the note. Picture: RBA.

The number 20 at the bottom of the note reverses from light to dark and dark to light when moved.

The strip also contains “nanotext”, which can be read only under a microscope.

The note uses different wording in the text — which is just as well, as there was a spelling mistake on the original new $50 note with an “i” missing in the word “responsibility”. About 46 million new $50 notes contained the typo, which was corrected in later runs.

“It was actually in the printing rather than the security features,” Mr Pratt said. He confirmed a new $100 note was in the works; it was not being axed as some had claimed. In fact, the $50 and $100 remain the two most popular Australian banknotes, with the $50 the highest-circulating note.

“The $50s are extremely popular because they go into all ATMs,” he said. “With the hundreds there are a lot in circulation, but not a lot being circulated, if you know what I mean.”

His comment suggests the $100 is the favourite note for stuffing under mattresses.

Banknote security is a quantum leap ahead from the old days of paper printed notes.

The $20 is the second last note to be converted to the new series; the new $100 is yet to come. Picture: RBA.

Go back to the 1960s, and reports of fake notes regularly appeared in newspapers, along with large photos and guides of how to spot a counterfeit. I remember a person’s coat button was missing in one counterfeit — that’s how basic some of the fakes were.

The switch to polymer notes started with a new $10 on Australia Day in 1988, but it didn’t stop counterfeiting efforts.

“One of the reasons they upgraded to the new series banknotes is the sophistication that comes with home printers and scanners. The resolution is very high on the printing side, but also the resolution of the scanning is quite high,” Mr Pratt said.

He said criminals cannot scan or copy the features on the clear window and, if they managed to, the replicas don’t offer the functionality, such as the fluttering kookaburra. He said it would be difficult to accurately reproduce the subtle changes of colour on the new note.

The new $20 notes had already been printed and were being distributed through the RBA’s cash distribution centre.

Cash handling and vending machines will need to be updated to handle the new note, but Mr Pratt said owners had been warned that new notes were coming out each year until the changeover was completed.

There are more than 170 million $20 banknotes and they will be slowly replaced as damaged notes are taken out of circulation. That will take time as polymer notes last considerably longer — maybe two years or so.

Mr Pratt said there hadn’t been any serious large-scale counterfeiting of Australian notes since the new series began rolling out.

Australia's second generation polymer $20 note starts circulating on October 9. Picture: RBA.