How are banknotes made?

Ever wondered how the paper money we have in our wallets are printed?

Banknote printing is actually a complicated process that requires sophisticated equipment that is usually only available to central banks of issuing countries. In the Philippines, the Bangko Sentral gives us a simple outline of how they do it:

The making of a banknote starts with the conceptualization of design. The concept is drawn by an artist into a prototype banknote. Once the prototype is approved, a master die is prepared from which printing plates are produced. Production then takes place involving the following steps:

Litho Printing. Impressions are printed on a rubber blanket cylinder. These are in turn transferred to the sheets of banknote paper. Both sides of the sheets are printed simultaneously with multi-color or rainbow background prints.

Intaglio Printing. After the background colors are printed, engraved features of the banknote are printed at the intaglio machines, which produce the tactile or embossed effect on the banknotes.

Sheet Inspection. The printed sheets are inspected for printing faults. Defective notes are cancelled and incinerated for security reasons.

Numbering. The good sheets go to the numbering machines for the printing of serial numbers.

Tenning. Numbered sheets undergo inspection of every tenth sheet for other printing defects which were not detected earlier.

Finishing. The numbered sheets finally go through finishing which involves cutting into notes, counting, packaging.

Here's a video courtesy of howstuffworks.com describing how dollar bills are printed in the US. This process should be similar to how the Bangko Sentral does it in the Philippines.