Upgraded Georgian Lari wins Best Banknote of 2016

Georgia’s vibrant new banknotes are gaining international recognition after jointly winning the Regional Banknote of the Year 2016 award in Bucharest, Romania.

On March 15 at the High Security Printing Europe conference, the national banks of Georgia and Kazakhstan were awarded the coveted Regional Banknote of the Year 2016 award, sharing the honours for Georgia’s new Lari currency series and Kazakhstan’s 20,000 Tenge banknote.

The Regional Banknote of the Year award is an international award among European and CIS countries.

Georgia shared the top award for its revised 20 and 50 GEL banknotes.

The award recognised outstanding achievement in design, technical sophistication and security of a banknote or banknote series.

National Bank of Georgia's new Lari banknote series. Photo by reconnaissance.net.

The key judging criteria was that successful banknotes should combine visual artistry and high levels of technical and security sophistication. The banknotes should also reflect the cultural heritage of the issuing country in the note, and the relevance of the overall design and symbolism to the issuing country.

The National Bank of Georgia announced the win on its website today. The bank noted Georgia had met all the judging criteria, which was why it was jointly selected as a winner.

Georgia’s revised 20 and 50 GEL banknotes in bright new colours and sizes were released to the Georgian public in February 2016.

NBG said the new banknotes’ designs were based on the existing series, featuring Georgia’s cultural and historic heritage but with a distinctly different and more modern appearance.

This was the first redesign in the currency’s 20 year history. Revised five, 10 and 100 Lari banknotes will soon be released into circulation in Georgia.

A description of the new Georgian banknotes was described by Reconnaisance, who organised the High Security Printing Europe conference in Bucharest.

The 50 and 100 Lari feature SPARK® for the first time, while the 20 Lari features OVI for the first time (as will the new 5 and 10 lari notes). The new notes also include a holographic stripe in which the image matches the portrait on the note, iridescent stripe and demetallised colour shift window thread. The mould-made watermark also matches the portrait, and is supplemented by an electrotype with the denomination and the currency symbol for the lari.”

Additional security features include visible and UV fluorescent fibres, latent image, see-through feature and microtext. In addition to the ascending order in the size of the notes, the visually-impaired have also been catered for by the use of raised intaglio bars on either side of the note, the number of which denote the denomination.”

The award was received by Mariam Zavradashvili of the National Bank of Georgia.

The full list of countries nominated in the Best Regional Banknote of the Year 2016 were: 

• Upgraded 20 Euro – European Central Bank;
• Swedish Krona, new series – Swedish National Bank;
• Upgraded 20,000 Forint – Hungarian National Bank;
• Upgraded 200 Shekel – Bank of Israel;
• 20,000 Tenge – National Bank of Kazakhstan;
• 500 Hryvnia – National Bank of Ukraine;
• 100 Jubilee Ruble banknote – Central Bank of Russia;
• Banknote series – National Bank of the Republic of Belarus; and
• Upgraded Lari banknote series of 20, 50 and 100 Lari – National Bank of Georgia.