Concept design for new polymer £5 note featuring former British leader Winston Churchill. Photograph: AP
Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has formally announced that Britain will switch to using plastic banknotes in 2016, ending 320 years of paper money.
After a public consultation in which 87% of the 13,000 respondents backed the new-style currency, the Bank said it would introduce "polymer" notes, as it prefers to call them, in two years' time, starting with the new £5 note featuring Winston Churchill in 2016 and the Jane Austen £10 a year later.
Speaking at a press conference in the Bank's Threadneedle Street headquarters, Carney said: "Our polymer notes will combine the best of progress and tradition. They will be more secure from counterfeiting and more resistant to damage while celebrating the history and tradition that is important both to the Bank and the nation as a whole."
The move follows Carney's native Canada, where plastic notes are being rolled out, and Australia, where they have been in circulation for more than two decades.
Carney launched a public consultation on polymer banknotes, seen as cleaner and more durable, shortly after arriving at the Bank this summer. However, the Bank's notes division has been considering plastic money for several years.
Bank officials have been touring shopping centres and business groups around the country with prototype notes to canvas public opinion. The Bank has promoted its polymer notes, featuring a see-through window and other new security features, as less threadbare and tougher to counterfeit. It has sought to quell concerns about the environmental impact of printing on plastic by suggesting they can last up to two-and-a-half times longer than the cotton-paper notes in circulation at the moment. The durability will also compensate for the higher production costs and save an estimated £100m, the Bank claims. Its laboratory tests showed polymer banknotes only begin to shrink and melt at 120C, so they would fare better in washing machines but could be damaged by a hot iron.
1 comment:
Last year the current account deficit for energy (oil, gas, coal, electricity) for the UK was £20B. This year it will be larger. Twelve ago we were a net exporter of energy. With North Sea oil and as in terminal decline our energy import bill is growing exponentially.
This alone is a major drag on the UK economy. The latest surge is almost certainly a consumer led import boom in the lead up to Christmas, combined with the money lending house buyers stimulus from the government. Classic consumer bubble that is going to pop when the BoE is forced to raise interest rates to protect Sterling.
Post a Comment