Watermark Conference-2011
The Fourth International Scientific and Practical Conference on Security Printing Watermark Conference-2011 took place on June 21 – 23, 2011
in Rostov-on-Don (Russia)
More than 260 delegates from 23 countries took part in the conference: representatives of national banks from different states, Russian regional banks, banknote factories, printing and minting works, printing and holographic companies; as well as officials from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation, the Forensic Science Institute of Federal Security Service of Russia, the Federal Tax Inspectorate of Russia, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia, the Federal State Statistics Service of Russia, the Federal Service for Alcohol Market Regulations, the Federal Agency for State Property Management, the Central Election Commission of Russia and other governmental organizations.
Among the participants of Watermark Conference-2011: Banknote Factory of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, National Bank of Austria, National Bank of Kyrgyz Republic, National Bank of Ukraine, National Bank of Belarus, AK BARS Bank (Russia), Sberbank of Russia, Trans-Dniester Republican Bank, Banking Innovation Systems (Russia), Regula (Belarus and Latvia), SP Holography (Ukraine), Russian Association of Motor Insurers, Forensic Science Center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, Cryptotech (Belarus), Belarusian Printing House, Minsk Print Factory of Goznak (Belarus), Central Bank of the Netherlands, Giesecke&Devrient (Germany), Polish Security Printing Works, Nigerian Security Printing and Minting, Perum Percetakan Uang Ri (Indonesia), ArjoWiggins Security (France), ART-Line Projekt (Germany), Atlantic Zeiser (Germany), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (Philippines), Bayer MaterialScience (Germany), Centro Grafico (Italy), Currency Research (USA) and others.
The conference was held with the support of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and the Association of Regional Banks of Russia. The Russian Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Goznak” traditionally became the general sponsor of Watermark Conference-2011.
The honored sponsors are KBA-NotaSys (Switzerland) and SICPA (Switzerland).
The following nine companies have also sponsored the event: Double-V Group of Companies (Russia), EAST Industry Engineering Company (Russia), HoloGrate (Russia), Krypten (Russia), Mezhdunarodnaya Kniga-Security Papers (Russia), Gleitsmann Security Inks (Germany), Leonhard KURZ (Germany), OVD Kinegram (Switzerland), SAP (Russia).
More than 30 presentations were made during two days of the conference held in Don-Plaza Hotel in Rostov-on-Don. The first session was devoted to the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ivan Orlov, the inventor of the Orlov printing. However the presentations were mainly not about the history but present-day development of the banknote printing industry. The highest interest was shown to the presentation made by Arkadiy Trachuk, Goznak Director General, who spoke about trends of printed security in the digital age. Alexander Yurov, Director of Cash Handling Department of Bank of Russia, in his presentation “Organization of anti-counterfeiting work in the Bank of Russia” cited the statistic data: «At year-end 2010 about 128 700 counterfeit banknotes of Bank of Russia were revealed, which is by 17% less comparing to the data of year 2009. In the first quarter of 2011 there were 22795 counterfeit banknotes revealed which is by 38% less than the comparable index in 2010”.
Next went the presentations about design and strategy of banknote security system and fighting counterfeiting. One of the sessions was dedicated to ID-documents and plastic cards. The speakers also represented modern secure technologies, equipment and methods of secured products identification.
Many companies had a chance to demonstrate their latest developments at Watermark Conference. The representative of the Swiss company OVD KINEGRAM made a presentation about the next gen development - KINEGRAM®RFID. Bayer MaterialScience showed the latest version of Bayfol®HX photopolymer film which allows to get a full color volume hologram. Michal Forejt from Optaglio told about the last child in OVMesh™ family - Kristall™ protective element, which has a transparent layer and is installed into the card structure of an ID-document.
Each delegate was all ears while listening to what’s of most professional interest. However, in general, the references about the conference held were unanimously positive. “We took part in Watermark Conference for the first time and we are very glad about it”, Michal Forejt said. He added, “The conference was very successful for us. We will surely participate in the next Watermark”. “It was a perfect conference which brought together the companies playing huge roles in the market of security products. Thus we had very useful and interesting negotiations”, Ian Smith from Leonhard KURZ shared his opinion. “My expectations were realized”, Igor Tverdokhleb, the expert of the company «SP Holography», said, “There were a good number of useful presentations and expositions”.
Sixteen companies took part in the exhibition. The organizers said that those wishing to take part in the conference and exhibition in particular were more than the maximum possible quantity of places. The confidentiality of the conference topic (secured products) and the previously declared number of delegate packages obliged organizers to stop the acceptance of applications for participation a whole month before the conference.
Rostov-on-Don - the venue of Watermark Conference-2011 – had no small part in the success of the event. The city with an interesting history, all-kind architecture and numerous green parks excited the participants of the conference who visited the capital of Rostov region and the city of Azov. “The conference became a nice platform for information exchange and discussions”, Vladimir Finogenov from the Bank of Russia said, “and Rostov-on-Don is a perfect meeting place. Watermark Conference gives Russian and foreign delegates a great opportunity to see the country, its most diverse cities”.
It is necessary to note that Watermark Conference is the only conference on security printing in Russia. This also generates a great interest shown by the companies from all over the world. Many foreign companies hope to strengthen the relations with the Russian companies and start their activity in the Russian market.
The organizer of the conference is the Russian publishing house “Water Mark” which issues the magazine about security products “Vodyanoy Znak” (and its English Digest “Watermark”) and the magazine about coins and medals “Gold Chervonets”. Water Mark Ltd. is also the organizer of the international conference on commemorative coins COINS and the international Coin Constellation Contest held annually for mints and coin distributors from all over the world.
The media partners of the Fourth International Security Printing Conference “Watermark Conference-2011” were the Russian and foreign specialized publications: Vodyanoy Znak Magazine, Banking Technologies Magazine, Currency News, PLUS Magazine, Carte Blanche Magazine, and “InterCrim-press” publishing house.
Additional information is available at the phone or by email:
Tel.: + 7-812-346-50-15 (-16,-17,-18)
Fax: +7-812-325-20-99
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