TIRANA, Sept. 25- The Bank of Albania had a stock of cash, thus it decided to create new cuts for the existing banknotes. But apart from looks the BoA has also updated the security elements in banknotes, to make them more contemporary with the rest of world economies. And to also make it way harder for counterfeiters to falsify the money, although forgeries of Albanian currency have been minimal in the past decade.
The first banknotes to hit the market will be the 200 and 5000 Lek, coming out on September 30. In 2020, the circulation of the 1000 Lek banknote will follow, along with a new banknote value of 10000 Lek which will have a national hymn theme, BoA governor Gent Sejko said. The 2000 Lek will start circulating in 2021, and the 500 Lek will come last in 2022. The existing banknotes will keep circulating parallel to the new ones, and the Bank of Albania will pull them gradually over a period of years.
Some of the new security elements to be added in these notes will be the security thread which will be inside the note and not outside as in the current money. The hologram is also another feature that will be added and will be at the right side of banknote. Another new and interesting feature will be the material of the 200 Lek which will be made of polymer plastic. This makes the banknote stronger and therefore lasting longer.
Apart from the production costs, some other extra costs the banking sector might face from these security elements, especially regarding the polymeric banknotes, will be adapting and/or ATM machines and money counters. These machines are programmed to read the paper banknotes only, thus it would either require a system update or changing the machines entirely so they can adapt to the new cuts and materials.
