Monitoring compliance with the recirculation of euro banknotes and coins – cash supervision

We have issued two decisions to designate supervisors in charge of cash supervision: the decision designating supervisors of euro banknote recirculation and the decision designating supervisors of coin recirculation. We are also responsible for two public coinage tasks. These tasks are to ensure the circulation of coins and to act as the National Coin Analysis Centre.

Euro banknotes

As a supervisory authority we must establish whether cash handlers recirculating euro banknotes check them with appropriate banknote sorting machines and whether they have established controlled processes for this purpose. Such machines must have passed a test performed by one of the national central banks of the Eurosystem not more than twelve months ago and must be included in the most recent list of successfully tested machines published by the European Central Bank (ECB). The list contains successfully tested combinations of hardware and software.

To enable the ECB and DNB to monitor cash handlers’ compliance and banknote circulation developments, cash handlers must prepare two half-yearly reports each year, to be submitted within two months after the expiry of the relevant reporting period. Such reports must include the following information:

• the number of banknotes processed and recirculated by or on behalf of the cash handlers
• the banknote handling machines (machine types and numbers) used by or on behalf of the cash handlers for recirculation purposes
• the number of banknotes processed and recirculated by cash recycling machines, broken down by denomination.

Euro coins

As a supervisory authority we must establish whether cash handlers recirculating euro coins check them with appropriate coin processing machines. Such machines must have passed a test performed by one of the designated national authorities or by the European Technical and Scientific Centre (ETSC) and must be included in the most recent list of coin processing machines for which the ETSC has received or drawn up a positive and valid detection test report summary.

The European Commission and the Member States monitor compliance by cash handlers by requesting them to prepare annual reports, which must include the following information:

• The types and number of coin processing machines in use
• Where each coin processing machine is located
• The number of coins processed per year and per denomination for each coin processing machine