Our History


Innovative Technology was founded in Oldham in 1992 by David Bellis MBE to create cost effective banknote validation equipment. Since then our business has grown to become a market leading provider of cash handling technology and we now operate from five continents around the world.

We have always been committed to innovation, developing the most technologically advanced products, to help our customers improve their performance and reduce costs. This continued focus of innovation, in partnership with our customers, has proved crucial to our continued growth.

Our banknote validators, banknote recyclers, multi-coin hoppers and printing solutions now handle millions of transactions every day for some of the world’s leading companies across the gaming, amusement, vending, retail and kiosk markets.


1990s – The foundations for innovation

Innovative Technology was established in 1992 at premises on Park Street, Royton, focused on the design and manufacture of cost effective banknote validators. In 1994 the company launched its first product, the NV1, and the iconic Smiley bezel was born. With the early success of affordable banknote validators, we expanded into Europe, opening offices in Barcelona (Spain) and Hamburg (Germany).

Having grown rapidly, in 1997, Innovative Technology won its first Queen’s Award for Exports. With ambitious plans for the future, the business relocated to purpose built facilities on Derker Street, Oldham in 1998. The original NV1 made banknote validators affordable to the AWP market, and with the release of the NV4, easing the transition to the Euro, our success continued and we were awarded our second Queen’s Award in 1999.


2000s – Expanding product range

Having ended the 90’s on a high, we began the decade with the launch of the NV7, the first of many new products and our first banknote validator with an integrated cashbox. In 2004 we introduced our SPF™ technology to our range of validators, improving acceptance rates to 99%, the highest fraud detection rates.

In 2008 we introduced the NV200 high volume, high security banknote validator which became the de facto choice for many leading manufacturers and operators.

During 2009 we moved all of our manufacturing from our Head Office in Oldham and opened a wholly owned manufacturing plant in Shenzhen, China, also opening another office in Brazil. 2009 also saw us enter the coin handling sector for the first time with the launch of the SMART Hopper – a state of the art multi-coin hopper and recycler. In the same year the SMART Payout was introduced and to this day remains unrivalled in mixed denomination recycling.


2010s – Investing for growth

With the business celebrating 20 years of innovation in 2012 and expanding rapidly, we continued to launch new products, enter new markets and increase investment in research and development. In 2011 we launched SMART Data, a free software programme that allows users to customise dataset files and further improve the performance of banknote validators in any location, a truly beneficial service for our customers.

2014 was a year of milestones for us all at Innovative Technology. We opened a new state of the art head office building at the Innovative Business Park in Oldham and added three new office locations to our global portfolio. We increased our manufacturing capacity in China and Brazil, as well as gaining numerous trading partners across the world to ensure that our customer receive the highest level of customer service.

In the same year we launched the SMART Ticket, the first ticket printing product in our portfolio, and unveiled a subsidiary printing company Innoprint. We gained numerous accolades, including being named the 13th fastest growing private company in Britain, ISO certification at our China factory and winning our third Queen’s Award for International Trade.

At the start of 2015 we unveiled our latest revolutionary product, the SMART Coin System, a combined bulk coin feeder, mixed coin hopper and recycler, eliminating the need for multiple hoppers, reducing operator collection costs dramatically. We opened a further office, this time in the USA and also received our second award from Fast Track, being recognised as one of the top 200 private companies in Britain in terms of international sales growth, a great honour, and something that we strive to continue to improve upon.

In 2016 we were identified as one of London Stock Exchange’s 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain. The report is a celebration of the UK’s fastest-growing and most dynamic small and medium sized businesses and we were honoured to be listed.

In 2017 we celebrated a huge milestone, our 25th year in business and won the Queen's Awards for Enterprise: Innovation.

In 2018 we received 3 awards for export; The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise: International Trade, Made in the North West Export Award and Made in the UK Export Award.