The Banknote Authenticity Lab is a set of educational resources developed for family workshops at the NBP Money Centre. The workshop explores how money is made and how its authenticity can be checked.
How can the security features of banknotes be explained without focusing solely on technical details?
Katarzyna Rokosz from the Money Centre created a story about a counterfeiter on a small island — the fictional country of Portonia. This light crime story engages participants in a search for counterfeit banknotes and introduces them to individual security features as they solve the mystery.
For the workshop, we created an entire fictional world: Portonia, its currency — the Mila — a local police inspector named Szyling, and the other characters in the story.
Designing the banknotes and coin was also a design challenge. The use of images of existing banknotes, such as the Polish złoty, is subject to significant technical and legal restrictions. This provided an additional incentive to create our own currency and the world of Portonia, enriching the workshop and giving it a distinctive character.
The banknote and coin were designed by Ala Lesiak.
The banknotes incorporate genuine security features used in currency production, including a watermark, UV printing, recto-verso printing and guilloché patterns. Their printing and production were carried out by a specialist printing company.
Participants are asked to find and mark the counterfeit elements on a banknote, using the methods they have learned to check its authenticity.