2024-02-03 16:05:39
The European Central Bank (ECB) has assigned Spain the full production of 10-euro banknotes in 2024 for all countries in the eurozone, in addition to the manufacturing of part of the five-euro banknote, both dependent on the Madrid plant of the public company Imbisa. Specifically, the Bank of Spain has the mission of manufacturing 424.2 million 10 euro banknotes, which is equivalent to a value of 4,241.5 million euros, according to data provided by the ECB.
In addition, the institution will participate together with the Bank of Greece – the main monetary authority of the Greek country – in the production of the 313.8 million five-euro banknotes that the European organization demands for the current year. “The Bank of Spain is responsible for providing 12% of the total needs for new banknotes,” sources from the institution point out to Efe.
There will also be 1,538.4 million 50 banknotes, 564.9 million 20 banknotes, 527.5 million 100 banknotes, 164.2 million 200 banknotes and no 500 banknotes in 2024, although in these cases the order falls to other countries that They use the euro, as it is a production process shared by all the national central banks of the eurozone. In total, it is expected that 3,533 million banknotes will be issued this year – with a total value of 179,625 million euros -, which represents 11% more units than in the previous year, when 3,141.7 were printed.
How do you decide how many tickets to make per year?
The production of banknotes begins with a calculation by the central banks of the countries of the euro zone with which they intend to determine how many banknotes have to be replaced as they are not suitable for circulation and the quantity necessary to satisfy demand, to which the ECB adds a general forecast for the whole.
Once the total needs are known, the European organization assigns the production volumes and the quantity that each national bank must manufacture, based on each one’s contribution to the ECB’s capital.
Thus, the Bank of Spain is the fourth in the eurozone by production share, only surpassed by its counterparts in Germany, France and Italy.
The allocation of production follows efficiency criteria and takes into account the cost of printing each denomination – type of banknote by value -, although it is common for entities to assume part of one or two annually, depending on the volume necessary for each of them. .
The ECB does not usually designate the production of a certain denomination to the same central bank every year, but rather it usually varies each year.
In this way, the Bank of Spain took care of part of the manufacturing of the 50 euro banknotes in 2023 and 2022 and will participate in the manufacturing of the 5 and 50 euro banknotes in 2025, as the distribution for next year is already known.
How are banknotes made?
In Spain, the process begins in the bowels of the paper production plant of the National Mint and Stamp Factory (FNMT), located in Burgos and with the capacity to manufacture up to 3,500 tons per year. The Burgos factory is in charge of making the paper money, made with pure cotton fibers – to give it firmness and resistance to wear -, in which a watermark and a high-tech security thread are also embedded and a patch is applied metallic by pressure and heat. The paper is cut into sheets and transferred to the Imprenta de Billetes SA (Imbisa) factory, a company owned 80% by the Bank of Spain and 20% by FNMT, located in the Madrid district of Vicálvaro.
This factory will replace the production lines of the legendary FNMT center on Jorge Juan Street in the Spanish capital, where euro coins are still minted, although there is the intention to move this activity to a site adjacent to the center. of Vicálvaro. The printing of banknotes is carried out inside the Imbisa facilities, one of the 11 locations accredited by the ECB in the eurozone, between centers dependent on the central banks and printing presses that have a tender from the national monetary entities.
The factory creates the banknotes from paper currency through a printing process divided into five techniques: lithography – application of the multicolored background -, silk-screen printing – placing the green number with the value of each unit -, intaglio – for high-definition images and the raised structure of the edges, typography – adding the serial number – and flexography – for varnishing. Afterwards, quality control is carried out and the sheets are cut into strips and subsequently into stacks, ending with a new examination in which it is verified that the banknotes are identical.
The final step is to package them in shrink-wrapped plastic film and stack them in shoebox-sized cardboard containers, which hold about 10,000 units.
Before moving to their destination, the banknotes rest in security cameras, a mission that the Bank of Spain has entrusted to Imbisa until 2030, the year from which annual extensions will be studied.
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