The Sixth International Scientific and Practical Conference on Security Printing Watermark Conference-2015 got the work done in Sochi. It is the only security printing conference held on the territory of Russia every two years, in different cities of Russia. This year Watermark Conference was held on 22-24 September on the Black Sea coast.
More than 300 delegates from 27 countries participated in the conference. Together with the conference, there was an exhibition, where leading world and Russian companies presented their developments in the field of security of documents. Watermark Conference is held for professionals, however the topics that are discussed there are familiar to everyone: banknotes, passports, identification documents, plastic cards and technologies for their protection.
The Experts from the Bank of Russia, national banks of near and far abroad, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the Russian Ministry of Finance, the Federal Migration Service of Russia, Forensic Center of Interior Ministry of Russia, banknote and printing factories holographic companies and other manufacturers of security printing products from around the world attended the conference.
The first session began with a presentation by Alexander Yurov, Director of the Cash Handling Department of Bank of Russia, who told about the situation with cash and non-cash payments in Russia and how the exchange rate impacted the purchasing power of citizens. Arkady Trachuk, Director General of Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Goznak”, made a presentation about serious changes in the field of security printing. According to his words, “the security printing itself as an industry has ceased to be such. It comes into the field of secure environment where the document is an important carrier of information, but it is included into a complex environment”. Many documents are translated into digital formats, additional databases appear. There are also changes with payment systems, and sometimes cash money does not play an important role anymore. Participants of the conference called this presentation fundamental not only for this certain conference, but also for the development of security printing market as a whole.
Current market trends affected the program of Watermark Conference-2015. A new session dedicated to brand protection was formed. It included presentations about necessity and possible ways of protection of the most frequently counterfeited products (pharmaceutical products, alcohol and clothing) and presentations about tracking and verification of goods marked with special labels. The session aroused great interest among conference delegates. Other sessions of the two-day conference were devoted to the latest developments of Russian and foreign companies in sphere of protection of banknotes and documents, to equipment of determination of authenticity of security products and to other topics. For the first time in the history of Watermark Conference a special session, devoted to modern methods of protection and innovative printing technologies for postage stamps in member countries of the Universal Postal Union, was held in Sochi.
On September 24, the Awarding Ceremony of WATERMARK BANKNOTE AWARDS was held in the framework of Watermark Conference-2015. This is the only competition in Russia for circulating banknotes of countries all over the world, put into circulation in the period from 2013 to 2015. Developments were evaluated in three categories, and names of winners were announced at the Ceremony.
In the category of “Modifications of security threads, stripes or patches with optical and kinetic effects” experts awarded victory to the research work of Giesecke & Devrient, called RollingStar®LEAD, which consists of a wide laminated stripe that combines elements of RollingStar (micromirrors) and holographic elements.
The winner of the category of “Modern modifications of optically variable printed features” became a technology Sicpaprotect®Dew, a protective coating for banknotes created by SICPA.
The winner of WATERMARK BANKNOTE AWARDS in the category of “Substrate modifications for banknotes” became the Trans-Dniester Republican bank for the issuing of composite coins made by “Plamet” technology. Goznak has developed the “Plamet” technology, and coins made of composite materials in denominations of 1, 3, 5 and 10 rubles, that combine the best features of banknotes and coins, nowadays have no analogues in the world.
