Authentication of Indian paper currency using digital image processing

Counterfeit currency notes create serious threat to the economy as it reduces the value of genuine currency and ham-pers the financial system due to inflation. Hence to limit the circulation of fake currency notes a system needs to be designed which can authenticate a banknote more efficiently. The aim of this present investigation is to differentiate between real and fake currency notes by considering various elements of digital image processing (IP). This method-ology when applied on MATLAB software gives a striking contrast between the real and fake Indian currency notes. The advantage of this technique is that the currency image can be captured by any type of simple scanner or digital camera in any lighting condition as well as can recognize the currency note from any direction and angle. From the output of the MATLAB programming the clear disparities obtained between genuine and counterfeit banknotes helps to detect a fake currency note very efficiently. The proposed approach for processing Indian currencies using IP seems to be a very simple and novel method and also open up entirely new application area for comparison of genuine and fake notes that have not previously been feasible or cost effective.