Certification for banknote production

In December 2001 the Bank of Italy (Banknotes Directorate) obtained a Certificate of Conformity with international standard UNI EN ISO 9002:1994 (Quality systems - Model for quality assurance in production, installation and servicing) issued by the certification body Det Norske Veritas (DNV) for the production of banknotes.

The central banks of the Eurosystem decided to adopt a common quality system in order to ensure homogeneous production of high quality banknotes by different printing facilities.

Thus, in June 2003 the switch was made from a System of Quality Assurance of the banknote as product to a Quality Management System of the production processes and certification was obtained of conformity with international standard UNI EN ISO 9001:2000 (Quality management systems. Requirements). One of the novelties of the standard is its strong emphasis on the aspects of efficiency, continuous improvement, and attention to the end user.

Another stage was reached in December 2004 when certification of conformity with international standard UNI EN ISO 14001:2004 (Environmental management systems. Requirements) was obtained, enabling the Bank to draw up and implement an environmental protection policy. This consisted in introducing advanced technical solutions to limit consumption of raw materials, natural resources, and sources of energy, as well as CO2 emissions.

The environmental management system has been combined with the existing quality system, giving rise to the Integrated Quality-Environment Management System.

As part of the periodical checks required in order to maintain certification, in March 2009 the Bank of Italy obtained a certificate of conformity with international standard UNI EN ISO 9001:2008 (Quality management systems. Requirement), geared at improving process efficiency and making it more compatible with ISO 14001:2004.

In November 2011, the Bank of Italy received the certification for its occupational health and safety assessment system - BS OHSAS 18001:2007, thereby satisfying the new requirements set by the ECB for banknote production starting from 2013. October 2020 saw the completion of the transition to regulation UNI ISO 45001:2018, which is a single Integrated Management System that incorporates three systems: UNI ISO 9001:2015 (quality), UNI ISO 14001:2015 (environmental), and UNI ISO 45001:2018 (occupational health and safety).