Every few years, the Bank of Canada announces new, more secure banknotes that are supposed to prevent counterfeiting. This year, they have decided to do something totally new and make them out of slick plastic. The new banknotes are intended to bring down the counterfeit rate, which currently sits at 35 bills per million. This rate seems low, but it is higher than in Australia where there are already polymer banknotes.
The new banknotes have a few security features intended to make them incredibly hard to copy. Inside the maple leaf, on the bill, are hidden numbers that only appear when looked at closely. In the clear window on one side of the bill, there is a metallic portrait and a metallic building that also have numbers inside them when rotated at certain angles. Numbers and transparent text also appear in the middle of the clear window when angled correctly. As a final measure, a maple leaf border is embedded around the window and the ink is raised.
The first banknote with the new plastic design will be the $100 bill, which will be released in November. The bill’s theme is Canadian medicine, with imagery of insulin, the pacemaker, and the human genetic code. The $50 bill will be distributed in March, featuring imagery of the Canadian north. In late 2012, the new $20 bill will be released, which will display the Canadian National Vimy Memorial to represent our past conflicts. In 2013, the $10 and the $5 bills will be released. The $10 bill will feature a Canadian train to represent the Canadian National Railway, while the $5 will have Canadarm2 and Dextre to represent our robotics innovation and contribution to the International Space Station program. All bills will still have the same people as before but with updated portraits.
Most people will have first contact with the new bills in late 2012 since $20s are the most common denomination, representing more than half the banknotes in circulation. The Bank of Canada hopes to put more $50s into usage by encouraging national banks to stock bank machines with $20s and $50s. They hope that the new security features will give retailers more confidence in their legitimacy and that consumers will be more comfortable using them for transactions. Once each denomination’s plastic version is released, the Bank of Canada hopes to have 70 to 80 percent of the older notes out of circulation within 18 months of release.
They look like they might be more durable than the ones that are in our wallets, so expect them to last a long time and stay together more easily than the papery ones we have now. The new features in our banknotes should give the Canadian dollar a claim to fame not just as the country with Monopoly money, but a country with unique, durable and secure currency. It speaks volumes when something as simple as the design of our bills can get this interesting.