February 25, 2007	Sunday	Safar 7, 1428

KARACHI, Feb 24: The State Bank on Saturday introduced newly-designed Rs1,000 banknote which was sixth in series as part of its ongoing campaign to end the menace of counterfeiting.

SBP Governor Dr Shamshad Akhtar launched the new banknote at a press conference and announced that all the field offices of SBP Banking Services Corporation would start issuing the new bill from Monday.

Dr Akhtar said that the state-of-the-art security features incorporated in the new banknotes were of international standards and thus minimise the possibility of counterfeiting.

It is important for the public to be well-versed with these security features so that they can easily recognise a counterfeit banknote when they come across it, she stressed.

The SBP governor urged the media to play its vital and constructive role in educating the public by giving wide coverage to the security features of new banknotes.

The launch of new high-tech banknotes is likely to further help modernise the banking industry as these notes are equipped with machine readable features.

Several built-in state-of-the-art security features designed to prevent counterfeit production of new banknote of Rs1,000 are: anti-copy and anti-scan, micro-lettering, latent image of denomination, window security thread, Optical Variable Ink and see-through as well as special feature for visually impaired persons.

The vignette of Islamia College, Peshawar is printed on the reverse of the new-design banknote of Rs1000 whereas vignette of Jehangir’s Tomb, Lahore appears on the reverse of the old-design banknote of the same denomination.

The State Bank has already introduced new banknotes of Rs10, Rs20, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs5,000 denominations.

The SBP governor said that the old banknotes of Rs10, Rs50, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs1,000 would continue to remain in circulation as legal tender.