The rapid technological advancements in digital imaging and printing have helped counterfeiters to produce/imitate easily the fake copies of the existing banknotes, which lacks advanced security features. To avert these threats, the Government of Pakistan and the State Bank of Pakistan have decided to issue new designed banknotes incorporating therein high-tech security features to minimize the possibility of counterfeiting of these notes as well as to efficiently process the notes through electronic devices such as note counting machines etc. Most note processing machines in the market require the availability of machine-readable features in banknotes to detect counterfeiting through colour printers/photocopiers. Security features in our new banknotes are similar to those, which are available in the recently issued Euro notes.

The new designed Rs.20 banknotes are being issued from 13th August 2005. New designed banknotes of Rs.10 and Rs.5000 are being issued from 27th May 2006. New designed banknotes of Rs.50/-, Rs.100, Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 will be issued during the next financial year (2006-07). The exact date for the issuance of these banknotes would be announced later in line with the progress in their printing. However, the State Bank of Pakistan as usual will make public announcement prior to the launching of these notes.

After the issuance of new designed banknotes, the old designed banknotes would continue to remain in circulation as a Legal Tender.

The existing banknotes were introduced a long time ago and since then there has not been any significant change in their designed and features. Ion July 1987 a new denomination banknote of Rs. 1000. Prior to that note Rs.500 notes were launched in April, 1986. Moreover, there has been a rapid increase in note circulation during the past few years. The total notes in circulation as on June 30, 1987 was Rs.77.80 billion against Rs. 811.45 billion as on May 13, 2006 i.e. an increase by more than 9 times within 19 years.

There had been many objections on the size of the existing banknotes. To address this issue, a number of proposals were considered to select the most appropriate size for the new banknotes. One such option was to keep the dimensions of the banknotes similar for all denominations. However, considering the low literacy rate in the country, it was deemed suitable to keep the length of the banknotes different for each denomination to facilitate the people, especially those living in rural areas, to easily determine the denominations of banknotes. However, the overall size of the new banknotes has been kept smaller than those of the existing ones. This would facilitate the physical handling of the new banknote in wallets causing less damage to notes, besides reducing their manufacturing cost. The size of existing Rs.10/- banknote is 73 x 141 mm while the new designed banknote of the same denomination is 65 x 115 mm. The difference in size between the two notes is of 8 x 26 mm. The size of the newly introduced banknotes of Rs.20/- and Rs.5000/- banknotes is 65 x 123 mm and 65 x 163 mm respectively as against the size of existing banknotes of Rs.1000 i.e. 73 x 175 mm. The size of the existing banknotes of Rs.50, Rs.100 and Rs.500 is 73 x 154 mm and 73 x 165 mm is 73 x 175 mm.

This has been done to facilitate the local people and foreign nationals.

The new designed banknotes of various denominations having different size, which make it easier for the visually impaired persons to distinguish them. Raised Intaglio Printing signs have been incorporated in the note to facilitate such persons to recognize the denomination of these notes. For example, the horizontal raised line on Rs.20 and three raised circles on Rs.5000 can only be identified by touching them.

The architectural heritage of the country was given due consideration while selecting the vignettes printed at the reverse of the notes. After reviewing extensively several proposals, picturesque vignettes of famous monumental structures of the four provinces and the federal capital were selected to print at the reverse of the notes. The Khyber Pass, Peshawar is the vignette at Rs.10 banknote, Mohen jo Daro, Larkana is the vignette at Rs.20 and Faisal Mosque, Islamabad. is the vignette at Rs.5000/- banknote.

Presently, the old designed banknotes of Rs.10, Rs.50, Rs.100, Rs.500 and Rs.1000 and the new designed banknotes of Rs.10, Rs.20 and Rs.5000 are in circulation.

A see-through is a stylized denomination numeral in Urdu appears partly at the obverse left top and partly at the reverse right top at Rs.20, Rs.5000 and new design of Rs.10 banknotes. When the banknote is viewed through light both sides of the denomination numeral match perfectly and give a complete numeral at obverse of the note.

Complete information about the new designed banknotes is available at the State Bank of Pakistan website link http://www.sbp.org.pk/index.asp, under the heading “Bank Notes”.