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Common NCB tests for recycling purposes

The following specifies the common tests conducted by national central banks on the machines used to check the authenticity and fitness of banknotes for purposes of recirculation.

In implementation of the European Central Bank Decision ECB/2010/14, banknotes can only be recirculated if they have been checked by machines that are compliant to the requirements laid down in the Decision.

To this end, national central banks offer the manufacturers of these machines the possibility of testing their capability for checking banknotes' authenticity and fitness, using a common procedure and a common set of banknotes consisting of a sample of counterfeit notes and of genuine notes, some fit and some unfit for recirculation. The test is free of charge and can be requested to any Eurosystem national central bank; the test is valid throughout the entire euro area.

The detailed procedure is described on the ECB website referred to below.

The cash-handling machines referred to in Decision ECB/2010/14 are classified into two categories:

1) Customer-operated machines, comprising:
- cash-recycling machines, which take in banknotes, check their authenticity and fitness for recirculation, and redistribute them to customers;
- cash-in machines, which allow only the deposit of cash, accepting notes and checking their authenticity.
Both these types of cash-handling machine must be able to guarantee traceability, i.e. to link the suspect counterfeits to the current account to which they were to be credited.

2) Staff-operated machines, comprising:
- banknote processing machines, which check notes for both authenticity and fitness;
- banknote authentication machines, which check only for authenticity.

Both categories of machine must be capable of classifying individual notes as genuine or suspect counterfeits without staff intervention, sorting them automatically, and separating genuine notes into those fit and unfit for recirculation.

The ECB website posts the list of machines that have been successfully tested; the link is given below. The tests must be repeated every year.

Manufacturers interested in testing their cash-handling machines should contact one of the ECB national central banks.

NCBs also offer testing of machines that only check the authenticity of banknotes not fit for recirculation. The list of such machines that have been successfully tested is published on the ECB website.

Manufacturers interested in having their cash-handling machines tested at the Bank of Italy should contact the test group at the General Cashier's Department (link below).