Fed aids banks on code to deter counterfeiting
- By Patricia Daukantas
- Jan 23, 2004
The new currency of the US twenty dollar bill
With digital technology making currency counterfeiting easier than ever, the Federal Reserve is helping international bankers develop software to combat illegal money creation.
The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group, made up of Federal Reserve banks and the central banks of other G-10 nations, has released its code free of charge to the digital-imaging industry, Fed spokeswoman Susan Stawick said.
The deterrence software made its debut in October in Adobe Photoshop CS, said Russell Brady, a spokesman for Adobe Systems Inc.
An update of the Adobe Photoshop informational Web pages will explain the anticounterfeit feature and direct users to
www.rulesforuse.org, a portal describing reproduction laws for the world's major currencies.
The Fed allocated $2.9 million in fiscal 2003 for counterfeiting deterrence research, according to a budget document on the board's Web site.