A reference platform for banknotes and coins

A collector examining a rare banknote, a bank teller checking a note’s security features, a foreign-exchange desk verifying a currency it rarely handles — all need the same thing: a trustworthy, detailed reference for the world’s money. Banknote Street is that reference, and Toobler built it across the web and native mobile, with a subscription business behind it.

Customer and context

Banknote Street is a subscription reference platform for the world’s banknotes and coins. It serves the people who work with currency as a subject in its own right — collectors and numismatists, currency dealers, corporate teams, and foreign-exchange centers — with a searchable, detailed catalog of the world’s currencies, down to the security features printed on individual notes. Toobler was the engineering partner that designed and built the product across web, native iOS and Android, and the admin platform behind them.

The challenge

A reference platform is only as strong as its depth, its findability, and the business model that sustains it:

• A catalog with real depth. Every country, currency, denomination and coin — with images, history and the security features on each note — organized so it can be explored, not just listed.
• Findability three ways. Different users think in different terms: by country, by currency, by denomination — and need to filter by whether a note is still in circulation. Search had to match how each audience actually looks.
• A subscription business, personal and corporate. Individual collectors and corporate teams need different access — corporate accounts that invite and manage multiple users, free trials that convert, promotions, and billing.
• One catalog, every screen, and an admin to run it. Web and native mobile for users; an admin platform for the team maintaining a constantly changing global catalog.

The solution

A searchable global catalog. Toobler built the reference at the heart of the product. Browse and search by country, currency or denomination, filter by circulation status, and open a detail page for each:

• country pages, with history;
• currency pages that plot each security feature directly on the note’s image;
• coin records.

Images are stored and served from the cloud and watermarked to protect them.

A subscription business, built in. Personal subscriptions and corporate accounts — where an organization invites and verifies multiple users under a single account — with free trials (and the reminder and expiry notifications that convert them), promo codes and discounts, and PayPal billing.

A platform the team can run. An admin module lets moderators manage countries, currencies and coins — adding, editing, grouping, marking notes out of circulation and notifying users — keeping a global catalog current without engineering help.

Every screen, one catalog. Native iOS and Android apps and a web app, sharing one API and one catalog, with notifications, a blog and resource content around them.

A backend to serve it. A Node.js API layer with cloud storage and email delivery, cron-driven notifications and documented APIs behind the apps.

Engineering worth naming

• Security features, plotted on the note. The detail that sets it apart — annotating each security point directly on a banknote’s image, the reference feature collectors and currency professionals came for.
• Personal and corporate in one product. Two subscription models, corporate multi-user accounts with email invitations and verification, free trials and promotions — a full subscription business, not just a paywall.
• Search that fits the audience. By country, currency and denomination, with circulation filters — the platform models how people actually look for currency.
• A catalog the team owns. An admin platform to keep a global, constantly changing reference current.

Results

• A searchable reference for the world’s currencies — banknotes and coins by country, currency and denomination, with security features mapped onto each note.
• A subscription business across personal and corporate tiers — free trials, promotions and billing, engineered into the product.
• One catalog on every screen — web, iOS and Android — kept current by the team through a dedicated admin platform.
• A multi-phase build — designed, launched and extended over successive releases.

What this means for subscription platforms

A subscription reference product lives or dies on three things: the depth and findability of its content, an admin experience that keeps it current, and a subscription model that fits both individuals and organizations. Banknote Street is that done properly — a deep, searchable catalog with genuinely specialist features, run by its own team, and monetized across personal and corporate tiers, on web and native mobile. If you are building a subscription content or catalog platform and need it engineered across every screen, talk to Toobler’s engineering team.