The Bank of England (BoE) has named British banknote printer De La Rue Plc - which has a big plant in Malta - as preferred bidder for its polymer banknote printing contract.

The company, which has printed Britain's banknotes since 2003, is expected to sign an extended 10-year contract in October and to commence printing in April 2015, the BoE said in a statement on Monday.

Shares in De La Rue were up 2.6 percent to 765 pence by 0735 GMT (8.35 a.m. BST), after climbing to a session high of 775p, their highest in nearly two months.

De La Rue, which makes more than 150 national currencies and UK passports, added polymer banknotes to its business in 2012 but lost out in March on a 10-year contract to supply polymer to the BoE to a company called Innovia Security.

Britain is one of the largest economies so far to adopt plastic banknotes, which the BoE has said would last twice as long as paper currency and save it around 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) over the next 10 years.

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