Australia reveals design of first new banknote

The Reserve Bank of Australia has issued a press release with the design for the first new banknote of the new generation, the 5-dollar note. The new note will be issued into circulation from 1 September 2016. The images show the basic design artwork of each side of the banknote. As previously announced, key aspects of the existing design – colour, size and people portrayed – are retained for ease of recognition and to minimise the disruption to businesses. There is a new 'tactile' feature to help the vision-impaired community distinguish between different denominations of banknotes.

The Governor, Glenn Stevens, said: "Innovative new security features have been incorporated to help keep Australia’s banknotes secure from counterfeiting into the future. As can be seen in the images, these include a distinctive top-to-bottom window. Each banknote in the new series will depict a different species of Australian wattle and a native bird within a number of the elements. On the $5 banknote, these are the Prickly Moses wattle and the Eastern Spinebill."

The first reactions on social media are not really positive. One comment stated the note looks like "clown puke". Mmm... I can see what they mean to be honest... Judge for yourself with the images below. The white areas are actually transparent.