Clydesdale Bank Wins Two International Awards

17/05/2010

Clydesdale Bank’s new series of banknotes won the ‘Best New Banknote Series’ and ‘Best Public Education Programme’ awards at the 2010 International Association of Currency Affairs Conference.

Clydesdale Bank beat competition from around the world to win the awards, taking twice as many votes as the runner-up. Central and commercial banks, and currency producers from over 75 countries, including the USA, Chile, and Turkey attended the conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Introduced to coincide with the Homecoming Scotland celebrations, the front of each of the new notes honours a prominent and innovative Scot while the reverse features one of Scotland’s five World Heritage sites. The Bank introduced its new family of banknotes from October of last year to celebrate the best of Scotland’s heritage, people and culture.

As part of the launch of the new notes in September last year, Clydesdale held two charity banknote auctions; raising over £180,000 for local charities chosen by employees as well as the Bank’s charity partner, Help the Hospices. A world record of £9,000 for a Scottish £1 note was set at the Glasgow auction.

Lynne Peacock, chief executive of Clydesdale Bank, said: “This is an outstanding achievement and recognises the striking designs and innovative security measures of our notes, as well as the Bank’s long history and rich heritage producing banknotes. Winning these awards demonstrates a magnificent team effort from the very many people responsible for designing, producing, and launching our World Heritage Banknote Series.”

Clydesdale Bank’s outstanding new banknote design features and public awareness and education programme helped position them amongst the competition to win the overall award. The notes’ vibrant colours, bold numerals, and raised bars were designed to aid those with visual impairments; demonstrating Clydesdale’s commitment to providing excellent service to all its customers.

These award winning designs are the first completely new family of banknotes that Clydesdale has launched in almost twenty years. Their designs included a new ‘depth image’ hologram security feature – the first time this has been used on a UK banknote. This hologram was shortlisted in IACA’s award for best new security feature. This and a range of advanced security and anti-counterfeiting features, when combined with an extensive public education campaign; all helped the Bank win the award.