The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has reiterated that Pakistani currency notes have specific features to help visually impaired persons identify the genuineness of currency notes and to distinguish between different denominations.

The central bank made the clarification through a statement on Thursday in Karachi after learning and taking notice that visually impaired persons find it difficult to recognise and distinguish amongst different Pakistani currency notes.

All currency notes of Rs20 and above contain braille features on the front side that help determine the denomination of a note, said the statement.

For this purpose, raised dots and small horizontal lines are printed on the left bottom corner just above the banknote serial number, according to the statement.

"This feature makes banknote denominations easily distinguishable by rubbing the thumb against these raised features," the SBP said in the statement.

The braille features in each denomination appear in this manner: Rs20 has one line, Rs50 two lines, and Rs100 has three lines while other higher denomination notes have dots as a braille feature. Specifically, Rs500 has one dot, Rs1000 two dots, and Rs5000 three dots, the statement further explained.

"All braille features on currency notes of all denominations of Rs20 and above are printed through the intaglio [printing] process, due to which they appear raised and on the front side of the note only. Thus, a visually impaired person can easily understand the denomination of the banknotes by feeling the raised printing as well as [determine] its genuineness."

All Pakistani currency notes have denomination-wise tiered sizing. Each currency note has the same width of 65 mm whereas lengthwise, each banknote is exactly 08 mm longer than the preceding denomination. Thus the highest denomination banknote of Rs5000 is 48mm longer than the lowest denomination currency note of Rs10.

The incorporation of a number of strong security features including braille features in banknotes are aimed at facilitating the general public. To create awareness about currency note features among the masses, SBP has also provided details on its website (http://www.sbp.org.pk/finance/index.asp).

Moreover, it has launched videos and a smartphone application on security features of currency notes which provide information both in descriptive and pictorial forms.