De La Rue – CBN Joint Venture Targets UK Passport Manufacture

De La Rue has entered into a strategic joint venture with Canadian Bank Note (CBN) to bid for the next generation of British passports, with the aim of returning booklet manufacture to the UK after roughly a decade of production in Poland under Thales DIS (formerly Gemalto). Personalisation of British passports is already carried out in the UK.

For context, IDN’s October 2024 editorial ‘Is Identity Still Part of Critical Infrastructure?’ highlighted how, after De La Rue sold its ID business to Oberthur Technologies in 2017, the UK was left without a major domestic identity document manufacturer. The new JV would partly reverse that gap by bringing passport book production back onshore, even though De La Rue itself is owned by US-based private equity firm, Atlas Holdings.