Zambia has issued a new 50 kwacha commemorative banknote, commemorating 50 years of independence. The new note depicts the former presidents Kenneth Kaunda, Frederick Chiluba, Levy Mwanawasa and Rupiah Banda and the incumbent preident Sata. Minister of Finance Chikwanda said the commemorative banknote bears the same features as the currently circulating 50 kwacha banknote except for the portraits of the five heads of state and the line "50th Independence Anniversary".
The commemorative note will circulate side by side with the current banknotes.
The Bank of Canada has announced that Canadian citizens are invited to participate in the design of future banknote series. From the website:
"The Bank of Canada today announced that it is inviting Canadians to comment on the principles that guide the design of the country’s bank notes.
The consultation, which will take place until 10 November, is a way for Canadians to contribute in an unprecedented way to the design of future bank note series. Canadians can participate in an online survey by visiting our Principles for Bank Note Design web page. The Bank will publish a summary of the comments received before the end of the year.
The consultation stems from a review the Bank conducted for the process used to select, develop and design the visual content for the Polymer series of bank notes. The review concluded that Canadians should have increased participation in the design process for the next series.
The Bank wants to include Canadians’ input at every stage of the design process. This consultation seeks to solidify the foundation upon which the visual content - theme, subject matter and images - will be developed in the future.
The Bank will also benefit from Canadians’ ideas on how images can respect these principles.
When the Bank begins work on the next series, it will again seek input from Canadians."
Norway announced on 4 December 2012 the start of the project to design new banknotes which will be their 8th series. First step was to decide on a theme for the new notes and in December 2013 they chose.... The Sea! I bet you didn't see that one coming right?
Based on that theme designers went to work. The subthemes for the different nominations were:
- 50 krone: the sea that binds us together
- 100 krone: the sea that brings us into the world
- 200 krone: the sea that gives us food
- 500 krone: the sea that gives us welfare
- 1,000 krone: the sea that brings us further
Is it just me or do these subthemes almost sound like a prayer if you read them together?
The designers came up with different ideas based on these subthemes and all the design can be found here. It is written in Norwegian but it is totally worth it because some of the designs are beautiful. And now from the press release:
"Eight participants were selected by a group of experts to take part in the final round of the competition. The jury has comprised five external professionals and one member from the Norges Bank. They have concluded that two proposals stand out: Ripple Effects by Enzo Finger, and Norwegian Living Space by The Metric System and Terje Tønnessen. The jury has selected Enzo Finger's proposal as the winner of the competition and is of the opinion that this proposal communicates the theme in a surprising way with considerable artistic flair.
Norges Bank has decided that a combination of two proposals submitted will go on for further work. The obverse sides of the notes will be developed on the basis of the proposal from The Metric System, Norwegian Living Space. The basis of the reverse sides will be the pixel motifs submitted by Snøhetta Design, Beauty of Boundaries."
So bad luck for Enzo Finger and his winning design but instead the Norges Bank chose two different designs as the motifs for the new series:
Hmm, well, that is kind of..... boring? If you want to see What Could Have Been, check Enzo Finger's design on page 41-45 of this PDF. In my opinion they are much nicer.
The new Norwegian banknotes will be issued in 2017.
Update 9 October 2014: the other denominations with these motifs are also available now.
Macau has authorised both the Banco Nacional Ultramarino (BNU) and the Bank of China from 2012 to 2023 to issue special banknotes commemorating the Lunar New Year. The next year wil be the year of the goat and will start on 19 February 2015. Below are the notes both banks will issue in commemoration of the new year.
Update: The notes for the Year of the Horse (2014) were issued simultaneously to avoid speculation.
Last year Cuba announced that it would abolish its two-currency system. Since 1994 Cuba has had two currencies, one pegged to the US dollar and the other worth only a fraction of that. The more valuable convertible peso (CUC) was reserved for use in the tourism sector and foreign trade. Now its value will be gradually unified with the lower-value CUP.
New details about this plan have now been published by the Central Bank of Cuba. The convertible peso is worth about one U.S. dollar, or 24 local pesos. The highest-denomination local bill is 100 pesos. So the shift will require putting more pesos into circulation and issuing higher-denomination banknotes.
The new Swiss banknotes are not off to a good start. After previous delays the notes, which should have been issued in 2012(!), were supposed to be issued in 2015. Now it has been made clear that date won't be reached as well. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) has now mentioned 2016 as the most likely issue date. Insert your own joke about Swiss clocks and their accuracy here.
The reason for the delay is (again) technical difficulties. According to one spokesperson from the SNB "the new banknotes are reaching the limits of what is physically possible with a banknote"...
Hmmm....
More info on the new banknotes can be found in this post.
Yes I know, sorry for the lame pun in the title. The subject of this post is actually a serious one. The US Government Accountability Office released a report Friday that said the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has fallen behind in its plans to produce US paper money with raised bumps on them than visually impaired people can use to identify the notes in their wallets.
The problem with US notes is that they are all the same size and have similar designs. They can only be distinguished form each other by looking at them. Not very helpful if you're, oh I don't know... blind? In 2002 a law suit was held against the Treasury Department by the American Council of the Blind. As a result of that suit, a Washington DC court ordered the Treasury to make its currency more accessible to the blind.
In 2011, the Treasury Department approved a three-pronged plan that includes making the denominations on bills easier to read, providing small currency readers to people, and creating money with raised bumps that can be read by hand. Treasury has approved a design for the raised bumps that it hopes to test in the coming years.
Due to worries about the costs and the ability of the bumps to 'stick' to the note and not wear off in everyday use, the whole process has been delayed. The expectation now is that the new notes will be available from 2020. In the meantime the Government Accountability Office has advised the government to hand out note readers as compensation.
In the graphic below a possible placement of the raised bumps on the US notes is suggested.
source
Joyous tidings fellow Europeans (and other people) for today the European Central Bank (ECB) has started issuing the new 10 euro banknote, the second note in the new Europa series.
A new design with some minor changes, updated security features which we already saw in the new 5 euro issued last year and with a new language: cyrillic. The design and theme is not spectacular different from what we already know, but I like the slightly different colour they've chosen.
Let's hope we can find the new note in our pockets a little bit faster than the new 5 euro which took quite long to find its way to the public.
>> Press kit
>> Press release
Read More
The Central Bank of Myanmar will issue a new 5,000 kyat banknote from 1 October 2014. The new note will have a new design and updated security features. All existing 5,000 kyat banknotes (first introduced in 2009) will remain legal tender.
There are currently no less than 11 denominations in circulation in Myanmar, which are 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1,000, 5,000 and 10,000 kyat.
A picture of the new note will be added once I find one.
Update 01-10-2014: the new note appears similar to the existing red–coloured white elephant note except it includes a watermark elephant, a security thread and a layer of varnish on both sides.
Update 17-10-2014: and we have pictures!
Scotland has voted to stay in the United Kingdom after voters rejected independence with a wider margin than most people expected. For our hobby this means that not much will change in regards to the Scottish banknotes. Next year we'll see the introduction of the new polymer note by the Clydesdale Bank.
The Central Bank of the Dominican Republic has issued a statement that a new set of banknotes will be issued in October. The denominations of 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 and 2000 dominican peso will get a new design and updated security features.
The design of the new notes will incorporate the national flower of the Dominican Republic: the Pereskia Quisqueyana (a.k.a. the Bayahibe Rose). The new notes will be issued from 1 October 2014 and will circulate alongside the current banknotes.
Update 17 September 2014: Pictures! Thanks to banknotenews.com.
As expected the Bank of England (BoE) has announced that banknote printer De la Rue is the "preferred bidder" for the new polymer 5 and 10 pound notes, which basically means De la Rue is going to print them. De la Rue lost out on a bid to provide the polymer sheets (which went to Innovia) but it was widely expected to retain the order to print the pounds, which it has been doing for the past decade.
The new notes will be smaller (by around 15%). The first polymer note to be printed and issued will be the £5 note with the image of Sir Winston Churchill. This note will enter circulation in 2016, shortly followed by the £10 note with the image of Jane Austen.
Update 15 October 2014: De la Rue has now been officially chosen as the printer for the next series of British pound notes. The contract is valid for the next 10 years.
The Central Bank of Tunisia has announced that old versions of the 5 and 10 dinar notes will be withdrawn from circulation by the end of 2014. Specifically the type 1993 and 2008 of the 5 dinar and the type 1986, 1994 and 2005 of the 10 dinar notes. The banknotes can only be exchanged for new banknotes from 1 January 2015 until 31 December 2019 at the office of the Central Bank.
The cancelled notes:
Last year I wrote about the news that the Bulgarian National Bank was planning to replace the 2-lev note with a coin. No date was known at that time but according to rumours this week, this will happen in 2015.
Paper notes will continue to be used for a certain period of time, however the damaged bills will be withdrawn from circulation.
Updated 2-11-2015: the 2-lev note will be replaced from 7 December 2015 according to this press release.
The Central Bank of Hungary is about to replace all issued banknotes, starting with a new 10,000 forint note issued today. The whole operation is scheduled to be finished in 2018. The new banknotes will get an updated design, new security features and the printing process will be made more cost efficient. The new banknotes are expected to last for another 20 years.
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