June 13, 2006	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 16, 1427

KARACHI, June 12: The State Bank of Pakistan during the next fiscal year will issue newly-designed currency notes of all denominations with high-tech security features. These new security features will not only check the counterfeiting but will make these notes comparable with euro and greenback.

The SBP recently introduced Rs5,000 note and a newly-designed Rs10 note with new security features.

The chief spokesman of the SBP in a press statement here on Monday said that the SBP would launch newly-designed banknotes of Rs50, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs1,000 during the 2006-07. It had already launched newly-designed banknote of Rs20.He said the purpose of launching of these notes was to minimise the possibility of counterfeiting.

He further said that the rapid technological advancements in digital imaging and printing helped counterfeiters to easily forge banknotes which lacked advanced security features. To meet these threats, there had been a significant technological change in banknote designs and features internationally to make the modern banknotes difficult to forge as well as to efficiently process the notes through electronic devices such as note counting machines etc.

“Most note processing machines in the market now require the availability of machine readable features also in banknotes to detect counterfeiting through colour printers and photocopiers. This necessitated the introduction of new banknotes in the country,” he added.

The issuance of Rs5,000 note is still under criticism and the economists believe that the high-denomination note was introduced because the purchasing power of rupee had drastically reduced in the last five years.

Economists also argue that when both the SBP and the government encourage documenting all transactions and persuading people to make payments through cheques, there is no reason to issue such note of high denomination. The note will be out of reach for majority of Pakistanis while middle class cannot afford to keep it as their earnings are not very high.

The spokesman said that the main benefit of introducing Rs5,000 banknote was to provide convenience and facilitate higher value transactions. “Issuance of larger denominated note also economises the expenditure on printing of notes as higher denomination notes will reduce the consumption of lower denomination notes,” he explained.

He said that the old denomination banknotes were introduced many years ago and there had not been any significant change in their designs and features since then. The last major change in our banknotes occurred in July 1987 when a new banknote of Rs1,000 was introduced. At that time, the total notes in circulation were Rs78 billion which had now gone up to nearly Rs800 billion, he added.

Referring to the criticism of see-through feature introduced in the newly-designed notes of Rs10, Rs20 and Rs5,000, the spokesman said this was one of the most significant anti-copier and anti-scanner features introduced to minimise their counterfeiting.

He said that the banknotes of European Union countries, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Myanmar, Hong Kong, Mauritius, Sweden, Turkey, Lebanon, Malaysia and South Africa also carried the similar features.

The newly-designed banknotes would contain a special security feature to facilitate the visually impaired persons to easily recognise them, he informed.

“With a view to facilitate the handling of new notes, their size has been kept smaller than the existing notes. The width of the new designed banknotes is 65mm as against 73mm of the existing banknotes while the length of new banknotes has also been kept smaller than the existing ones,” the spokesman added.

He said that the old banknotes would continue to remain in circulation along with the new ones.