ROLE OF THE RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA

The Reserve Bank Act 1959 confers on the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) the responsibility for the production and issue, reissue and cancellation of Australia's notes.

The RBA manages its note issue responsibilities through its Note Issue Department which arranges for Australia's currency notes to be printed by Note Printing Australia Limited (NPA), a separately incorporated wholly owned subsidiary of the RBA, located at Craigieburn in Victoria.

Notes are ordered from the RBA by commercial banks and initially distributed from the RBA's National Note Processing and Distribution Centre (NNPDC) operated by NPA to cash centres operated by armoured car companies. Day-to-day distribution, storage and note processing is undertaken by armoured car companies on behalf of the commercial banks.

The Royal Australian Mint in Canberra is responsible for the production of Australia's circulating coins.

Achieving a Clean, Counterfeit-Free Circulation

The RBA aims to have only good quality notes in circulation. This helps to maintain confidence in Australia's currency by making it more difficult for counterfeit notes to be passed or remain in circulation.

To achieve this, the RBA has established quality standards for notes in circulation set out in a Note Sorting Guide. Notes which are identified by banks, other authorised deposit-taking institutions and cash centre operators as no longer fit for circulation are returned to the NNPDC. From time to time, the RBA also arranges for the return of circulating notes to the NNPDC. The notes are processed through high-speed automated machines to check for quality and authenticity. This enables the RBA to monitor the quality and authenticity of notes in circulation, gauge the level of fitness of notes in circulation and ensure they remain counterfeit-free. Authentic unfit notes are destroyed, authentic fit notes are reissued to commercial banks and counterfeit notes are passed to the Australian Federal Police.

To assist the public and others to determine whether they have a counterfeit note, the RBA has produced a Counterfeit Detection Guide.