Hardness and elastic modulus of a typical leadframe material which consists of a Cu alloy substrate with Ni and Pd bi-layer coatings were characterised using Vicker`s micro-hardness and nano-indentation tests. The two different testing methods produced similar results in that 'composite' hardness for all coated specimens decreased (except at very low loads in the nano-indentation test) with increasing indentation depth and tend­ed to converge at sufficiently high loads due to the strong influence of the coating/substrate interaction. The hardness values of substrate and Ni and Pd coatings were successfully determined from the 'composite' hard­ness values based on the empirical linear relationship with the inverse of indentation diagonal and the rule of mixtures principle.