Why the new banknotes will not be easily forged
May 28, 2010
People who forge money will continue to do so but the new notes are easy to differentiate from the fake ones.
By sylvia juuko
People who forge money will continue to do so but the new notes are easy to differentiate from the fake ones.
Bank of Uganda officials have said they will continue educating the public as their main weapon of beating forgery.
“We are in our second week of the launch and so far so good. Yes, there are issues of counterfeit.
We have taken advantage of the latest security features that are difficult to counterfeit. That doesn’t mean that counterfeiters will give up,†Naomi Nasasira, BOU’s director of currency, said on Thursday.
“Our strategy is to educate the public about how genuine money looks so that they can be able to spot the counterfeits,†she said during the monthly press briefing at BOU offices in Kampala.
The central bank on May 3 unveiled new-look bank notes in a major redesign of the currency. The family of six new notes that started circulating on May 17 bears an ultra modern security feature called Spark.
While most of the new 2010 series notes are in the familiar denominations of sh50,000, sh20,000, sh10,000, sh5,000 and sh1,000, the bank also introduced a new sh2,000 note.
The bank says it has embarked on a countrywide publicity and education campaign including placing adverts in the newspapers, radio and television.
But the slow distribution of the new notes across the country provided a window for counterfeiters to take advantage of the public’s ignorance of the notes.
Many people have not touched the new notes, so it is easy to be duped with fake ones.
But Nasasira says the delay of getting ATMs configured is not a Bank of Uganda issue but the commercial banks that own them.
The banks and their suppliers were given information early enough to change and they are changing. Remember both series are running concurrently,†she added.
Juma Kisaame, managing director dfcu, told the Saturday Vision that arrangements were underway to ensure the ATM technology is compatible with the new notes.
“We are in the process of configuring the ATMs. That shouldn’t take a lot of time because it’s not a huge adjustment.
All we need to change are the ATM cassettes that are compatible with the sizes of the new notes,†he said in an earlier interview.
People who forge money will continue to do so but the new notes are easy to differentiate from the fake ones.
Bank of Uganda officials have said they will continue educating the public as their main weapon of beating forgery.
“We are in our second week of the launch and so far so good. Yes, there are issues of counterfeit.
We have taken advantage of the latest security features that are difficult to counterfeit. That doesn’t mean that counterfeiters will give up,†Naomi Nasasira, BOU’s director of currency, said on Thursday.
“Our strategy is to educate the public about how genuine money looks so that they can be able to spot the counterfeits,†she said during the monthly press briefing at BOU offices in Kampala.
The central bank on May 3 unveiled new-look bank notes in a major redesign of the currency. The family of six new notes that started circulating on May 17 bears an ultra modern security feature called Spark.
While most of the new 2010 series notes are in the familiar denominations of sh50,000, sh20,000, sh10,000, sh5,000 and sh1,000, the bank also introduced a new sh2,000 note.
The bank says it has embarked on a countrywide publicity and education campaign including placing adverts in the newspapers, radio and television.
But the slow distribution of the new notes across the country provided a window for counterfeiters to take advantage of the public’s ignorance of the notes.
Many people have not touched the new notes, so it is easy to be duped with fake ones.
But Nasasira says the delay of getting ATMs configured is not a Bank of Uganda issue but the commercial banks that own them.
The banks and their suppliers were given information early enough to change and they are changing. Remember both series are running concurrently,†she added.
Juma Kisaame, managing director dfcu, told the Saturday Vision that arrangements were underway to ensure the ATM technology is compatible with the new notes.
“We are in the process of configuring the ATMs. That shouldn’t take a lot of time because it’s not a huge adjustment.
All we need to change are the ATM cassettes that are compatible with the sizes of the new notes,†he said in an earlier interview.