Setec Oy of Vantaa printed the Finnish share of the first euro series under the letter D. It is one of the shortest chapters in euro production: the works never appears in the Europa series.
| Country | Finland |
|---|---|
| Printing site | Vantaa |
| First-series printer letter | D |
| Europa-series printer letter | — |
| Europa-series control number | — |
| Status | First series only |
The Bank of Finland in Helsinki. Setec grew out of the bank’s own security printing house and worked from Vantaa.
From the Bank of Finland’s own printing house
Setec was formed in 1993 out of the security printing house the Bank of Finland had operated for over a century, and it was set up as a limited company owned by the central bank. It printed markka notes until the changeover and then Finland’s first euro banknotes.
The company was later sold and its ownership moved out of the central-bank world. Finland’s allocation has since been printed elsewhere in the Eurosystem, and no Finnish plant appears in the Europa-series list of accredited works.
A small and finite letter
Finland’s share of euro production has always been proportionate to a country of around five million people, so the number of notes bearing the letter D is small next to the large continental plants. Because production ended with the first series, that population is fixed.
One distinction is worth keeping firmly in mind. The first letter of a first-series serial number for notes issued through the Bank of Finland is L, while D is the production-code letter of the Vantaa works. The two answer different questions.
Reading the code on a note
Look for the short production code printed apart from the serial number. An opening D on a first-series note points to Vantaa. In the Europa series the same letter is assigned to the Polish works, which makes the series context essential — see printing offices and printer codes.
