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New Bt1,000 note hard to copy The Bank of Thailand is to issue a new Bt1,000 banknote with a silver foil stripe in November. The note will be difficult to copy and is being introduced to combat forgery. The managing director of the BOT's note printing works, Nopporn Pramojaney, said yesterday that of all Thailand's banknotes, the Bt1,000 note was most often forged. But this wasn't always the case. There was a time when Bt100 and Bt500 banknotes were more popular among counterfeiters. However, after the the central bank issued Bt100 and Bt500 banknotes with the added security of a silver foil stripe, forgery of those notes subsided. "There have been some attempts to imitate the new Bt500 banknote," Nopporn said, "but they don't look real". Currently, there was reckoned to be only one fake Bt500 banknote for every 10 million banknotes in circulation. By comparison, in the US and euro zone, there were 60-70 fake banknotes for every 1 million notes in circulation. Nopporn said that normally, if fake banknotes represented more than 5 per 1 million, the central bank would be obliged to issue new banknotes to replace the old ones. The new Bt1,000 banknote will be similar to the current Bt100 and Bt500 banknotes, but its colour will remain the same. There will be a silver foil stripe stamped with His Majesty the King's royal emblem and the number "1,000" in both Thai and Arabic numerals. The will be small "1,000" in Arabic numerals forming a background on the silver stripe. These will produce a reflecting effect when exposed to light. The paper of the new banknote will also include a watermark portrait of His Majesty the King in a transparent area. The note will have a metal fibre embedded in the paper imprinted with "1000 BAHT", as well as Bt1,000 in Thai. Nopporn said the new banknote would be printed using the latest technology, making it very difficult to duplicate. The cost of producing it would be about Bt2 per note, double the cost of the old banknote. At the end of December last year, 517.5 million Bt1,000 banknotes, 690.4 million Bt100 banknotes and 867.5 million Bt20 banknotes were in circulation. Although the BOT is promoting electronic payment systems, Thai consumers are still fond of using cash, partly because it cannot be traced. "Other payment systems have hidden costs," Nopporn said. "For example, payment via credit cards costs more than payment by cash." Thai people use cash for as much as 70 per cent of the value of total payments, whereas cash to GDP is accounted at around 9 per cent. The Nation 06 July 2005 www.nationmultimedia.com |