Cash Detectives puts bankers on trail of fake currency

Citation

(2008), "Cash Detectives puts bankers on trail of fake currency", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 40 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2008.03740eab.001

Cash Detectives puts bankers on trail of fake currency

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 40, Issue 5

A game-based learning program is helping employees to spot counterfeit notes at ICICI Bank, India’s second largest.

As custodians of national currency, all banks are expected to ensure that counterfeit currency presented at any customer outlet is identified and removed from circulation. ICICI was keen to reduce the amount of counterfeit currency being passed over its counters. The bank faced the challenge of training its new cashiers to identify security features and, at the same time, reduce the flow of fake currency.

While most cashiers relied on their instincts and a series of checks against security features, a lack of experience, large volumes of cash and dependence on automated counting machines were resulting in failure to identify all counterfeit currency at the bank.

ICICI approached Tata Interactive Systems (TIS) to design and develop training using its game-based learning-objects method to communicate the importance of identifying and isolating all counterfeit currency presented at the bank’s branches.

According to TIS’s Chandra Shekhar Ghildiyal: “The game-based learning-objects method enables players to learn and practise concepts, allowing a transfer of knowledge to application. An engaging game structure, combined with apposite illustrations and graphics, creates an apt learning environment which has been shown to involve the learners up to four times more than during a classroom-based training session covering the same subject.”

In the game, Cash Detectives, the player takes on the role of an intelligence agent. The player’s agency has to track down a terrorist outfit that uses counterfeit currency to finance its agenda.

The introduction presents the player with a task that revolves around a generic, but pressing, issue of evoking patriotic fervor among the target audience. The time-bound game builds a sense of urgency. While the game is in progress, the player receives messages about changes to the terrorists’ mission, and each fake banknote detected takes the player closer to tracking down the terrorists.

Cash Detectives aims to train ICICI staff in the key identification criteria for counterfeit currency. The game enables players to learn up to 14 security features of a genuine note, gain knowledge about tools to be used to ascertain their genuineness and acquire the experience to detect the absence of one or more of the security features.

“The patriotic storyline helps the bank employees to understand the broader implications of passing counterfeit currency while they learn to identify the visual security features and appreciate the importance of their ‘currency gatekeeper’ role”, said Chandra Shekhar Ghildiyal, who leads game-based development at TIS.”

“The menace of counterfeit currency and its consequences can only be countered through widespread awareness of the available security features and the ability to identify them. While posters at banks, automated telling machines and other strategic locations help to spread awareness, a game like Cash Detectives motivates learners with a challenging, yet risk-free, environment to practise and perfect their detection skills.”

ICICI is present in 17 countries, In India, it has some 950 branches and extension counters and more than 3,300 automated telling machines.