De La Rue secures 5-year extension to Australian passport contract

De La Rue said on Friday that it has entered into a five-year extension of its contract with Note Printing Australia (NPA) for the sole-source supply of polycarbonate data pages for Australian passports.

The contract originally went live in February 2022 and had a five-year duration. De La Rue said the extension will result in the group investing further to expand production at its Malta facility to meet increased volume demand, with the additional investment being covered by incremental cash flows.

The expanded capacity is expected to be in place around the beginning of financial year 2023/24.

Chief executive officer Clive Vacher said: "We are grateful to Note Printing Australia for their confidence to extend our relationship to a full decade. This extension helps to underpin management's confidence in the company's long-term outlook for the division.

"We are already in the process of delivering highly secure and durable polycarbonate data pages for the Australian passport programme, and we will ramp up this production further in the coming months. The additional investment will enable us to satisfy further demand, and is incremental to the previously-announced expansion of our Authentication and Currency factory in Malta. We look forward to many more years of continued collaboration with NPA."