De La Rue plc is a British company headquartered in Basingstoke, England. Its Authentication division provides Government Revenue Solutions, Brand Protection, and ID Security Solutions, such as polycarbonate data pages for passports. Its Currency division designs and produces banknotes, secure polymer substrates, and banknote security features. This includes security holograms, security threads, and security printed products for central banks and currency-issuing authorities. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is the world’s largest commercial printer of banknotes.

The company was founded by Thomas de la Rue, who moved from Guernsey to London in 1821 and set up in business as a ‘Leghorn’ straw hat maker, then as a stationer and printer. In 1831 he secured a Royal Warrant for his business to produce playing cards. In 1855, it started printing postage stamps and in 1860 banknotes. The company’s first banknotes were made for Mauritius.

In 1995, the company acquired Portals Limited which had been listed on the London stock market since 1904. For almost 300 years Portals had been one of the leading banknote paper manufacturers in the world, having manufactured banknote paper for the Bank of England since 1724.

According to wikipedia