Plastic Banknotes
September 11, 2013 by staff
Plastic Banknotes, Plastic banknotes with a see-through image of Britannia are likely to replace traditional paper notes from 2016 under plans being drawn up by the Bank of England.
The Bank said the wipe-clean polymer notes will be less tatty, tougher to counterfeit and last up to six times longer than cotton-paper based notes. They will also be 15% smaller, bringing English notes into line with sizes in other countries, but will remain larger than existing euro notes.
The public will have the chance to look at and feel the new notes at shopping centres across the country in a consultation process that starts immediately, with the new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, taking a final decision on the go-ahead in December. The Sir Winston Churchill £5 note will be the first to be made in polymer and launched in 2016, with the Jane Austen £10 note following in 2017. All the notes will continue to feature the Queen and use existing colours.
Plastic notes have been in circulation in Australia for more than two decades and are being rolled out in Canada, Carney’s home country, but the Bank said its polymer project began long before the new governor was appointed.
Scotland and Northern Ireland, where seven banks have the right to issue notes, will be free to continue with paper notes, opening up the possibility that cash machines in Carlisle will issue in plastic but across the border in Gretna will continue to supply in paper.
The Bank of England said that in tests, the new plastic notes do not melt until at least 120C and survive washing machines much better than existing paper notes. Despite being made from polymer pellets, the Bank said the notes will be more environmentally friendly as the manufacturing process does not use the same intensity of water as cotton-paper manufacture.
The new notes will cost around 50% more to produce, but the Bank estimates it will save £100m as it will need to replace the notes far less frequently. But the Bank ruled out importing plastic money from China. The notes will continue to be produced at the Bank’s ultra-secure plant in Debden, Essex, although subcontracted to a private company, likely to be either De La Rue, the existing maker, or Innovia, which manufactures most of the polymer notes currently in circulation across the world.
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