The South African Bank Note Company, wholly owned by the Reserve Bank, has printed the country's currency in Pretoria since 1958 — one of relatively few central banks on the continent with full in-house production capability. That vertical integration matters: it means security specification changes can be implemented without routing designs or substrates through a foreign contractor, a sensitivity that became politically charged during the sanctions years and never entirely lost its weight afterward.
The watermark and security thread package on this 2023 issue is notably modest by current international standards, at a time when most comparable economies have migrated their mid-denomination notes to polymer or multi-layer hybrid substrates.
The South African Bank Note Company, wholly owned by the Reserve Bank, has printed the country's currency in Pretoria since 1958 — one of relatively few central banks on the continent with full in-house production capability. That vertical integration matters: it means security specification changes can be implemented without routing designs or substrates through a foreign contractor, a sensitivity that became politically charged during the sanctions years and never entirely lost its weight afterward.
The watermark and security thread package on this 2023 issue is notably modest by current international standards, at a time when most comparable economies have migrated their mid-denomination notes to polymer or multi-layer hybrid substrates.