At the HSP EMEA Conference, held in Sofia in March, Komori were awarded joint winners of Best New House Note award for its Phoenix 2023 house note, produced to celebrate its centenary and which brought to life its concept of 'Power to the Print - Technology that Empowers'.

As a printing press manufacturer, Komori wanted to manufacture the 100th anniversary house note to empower its security print technology, utilising its unique printing equipment at its KGC-S (Komori Global Centre - Security), the new state-of-the-art facility which has been created as a showroom and training centre for the company's fleet of security presses in Tsukuba, Japan. Specifically, these include the double-deck 12 colour offset printing press, the 5 colour intaglio printing press and its UV inkjet digital printing system. In so doing, it wanted to demonstrate the value that can be generated from the printing itself.

The design uses 17 offset and five intaglio colours, including five ultra-violet (UV) colours. Under ultraviolet light, the Phoenix on the front glows red and yellow, while some of the clouds and snow on Mt Fuji glow blue. On the reverse, the cherry blossoms glow red and the Tsukuba plant and guilloche patterns, as well as several other areas, glow blue.

The note was produced in partnership with Landqart, whose Durasafe® substrate was used, SICPA for the inks, and Jura, which produces pre-press systems and software, and security features. The house note contains level 1, 2 and 3 security features.