WASHINGTON: The United States launches on Tuesday a new $100 bill that comes with, for the iconic greenback, a new touch of colour, as well as special features to foil counterfeiters.

In its first remake since 1996, the $100 banknote, which takes a key role in cash transactions for everyone from small traders to big drug traffickers worldwide, sports the traditional portrait of American Revolutionary War statesman Benjamin Franklin on the front.

On the back, too, it depicts Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776.

But it adds a yellowish “100” in one corner and, next to Franklin, a tan quill and bronze-coloured inkwell.

Cutting vertically through the middle of the banknote is a blue security ribbon.

The new design comes primarily to fight the increasing sophistication of counterfeiters, said Sonja Danburg, program manager in charge of currency education at the Federal Reserve.—AFP