"The euro represents the largest currency in circulation in the world and therefore an attractive target for counterfeiters with both the number and sophistication of counterfeits increasing since the euro’s introduction in 2002. To fight counterfeiting, the European Central Bank has implemented strict requirements under the Banknote Recycling Framework which require that no counterfeit notes are re-circulated by cash handling devices. In Northern Europe, today approx 15 000 point of sales systems are already equipped with both coin and note recycler systems and market in Europe is at a tipping point where self-service and self-checkout systems are gradually gaining in acceptance as a mainstream retail technology. These systems, integrated with the proposed EUROTHENTIC Cash Checking Machine system, will enable efficient and secure recycling of money. The advantages for the stores are secure and lower cost for cash handling due to amount of cash in store is reduced and also back-office work and CIT will be minimized. This will also enable cash back function - consumers to be able to withdraw cash directly at checkouts. While automated systems for validating bank notes are currently available, they have yet to find wide acceptance in the retail sector due to high capital costs and in particular performance considered slow by the sectors standards. The EUROTHENTIC project aims to overcome the current technical barriers to wide scale adoption of cash authentication technology by creating a low-cost, retrofitable cash validating module. The module will have the capability for high performance note processing and image recording, intelligent image analysis utilising a neural network approach and secure networking to provide remote system updates and a database facility for the secure tracking of bank note serial numbers and other characteristics such as location and time."