Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming December 2015 20 Tech Talk The Art of Cash Giesecke & Devrient has become one of the most trusted names in high-volume cash processing for casinos, banks and other cash-intensive enterprises. It all started from the company’s passion for banknotes, fostered over its 160-year history of manufacturing them. M unich-based Giesecke & Devrient is a leader in large-scale cash-processing technologies, providing fast, reliable, fully-automated, high- security systems designed to meet the needs of organizations including central and commercial banks and cash-transit enterprises as well as casinos. G&D’s cash-processing technologies are a natural complement to its other big segments — manufacturing banknotes as well as the production of substrates and foils. G&D is one of the world’s leading suppliers of both banknotes and the paper used to print them. It has printed more than 125 billion banknotes for various currency zones and exports banknote paper and high-security foil to more than 100 countries. In 2014 alone, it produced 22,500 tons of banknote paper and 15 million square meters of security foil. G&D began as a printing business founded in Leipzig, Germany in 1852 by Hermann Giesecke and Alphonse Devrient, who set out to establish new technological standards for the banknote printing industry. Through the acquisition of Papierfabrik Louisenthal in 1964, the company eventually became involved in the production of banknote paper and security foil. Earlier this year, Inside Asian Gaming was privileged to attend a special media event hosted by G&D in Munich that included a tour of its Louisenthal paper mill and foil plant and a half-day seminar covering topics ranging from the future of payments to the challenges of banknote design. The Louisenthal facility is nestled in the Bavarian countryside an hour’s drive south of Munich, and it would be putting it mildly to say security in and out of the building is tight. In contrast to the impression given by its rustic surroundings, the inside of the plant is decidedly high-tech, dominated by special-purpose machines churning out bobbins of security foil and reams of banknote paper in a multitude of hues for various nations.