South African money got a makeover this year
Local businesses have been duped with counterfeit notes as recently as last week, according to secretary of the Newcastle Community Policing Forum (CPF), Talha Randeree, who disclosed that one business discovered too late that it received a R5 000 payment in fake R200 notes.
The new look, new feel banknotes and coins which entered circulation on May 3 were designed to be more easily recognisable by the blind and visually impaired.
They also feature nifty enhanced security features which make it easier for business people to distinguish real money apart from counterfeit notes, even without the use of equipment such as UV lights.
Local businesses have been duped with counterfeit notes as recently as last week, according to secretary of the Newcastle Community Policing Forum (CPF), Talha Randeree, who disclosed that one business discovered too late that it received a R5 000 payment in fake R200 notes.
On Thursday, September 14, the CPF hosted a team of currency integrity officers from the Currency Management Department of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB), who gave a demonstration to law enforcers and business people on how to identify the security features on the upgraded notes, to combat counterfeiting.
“Business people have a duty to learn to identify counterfeit money and help prevent these fake notes from spreading,” said Randeree.
“Our aim is to see to it that everybody is able to quickly identify a counterfeit note using just their eyes and fingers with the look, feel, tilt method,” said currency integrity officer, Phenyo Marumo.
“People refer to the upgraded banknotes as ‘new notes’ but we prefer the term ‘upgraded notes’ as it is concurrently in circulation with the old existing notes,” Marumo clarified.
According to Marumo, some of the new features introduced in the upgraded banknote include enhanced and improved colours to make it easier to differentiate between denominations, especially between the R20 (brown) note and the R200 note (orange), enhanced tactile features with raised print on the vertical edges of the note used to identify lower denominations and raised print on the horizontal edges to identify higher denominations, as well as a dynamic tilt security thread which changes colour when you tilt the banknote.
The security thread on each denomination has its own unique pair of colours.
While the upgraded notes still feature an image of Nelson Mandela, the watermark has changed to reveal the ‘Big 5’ animal that appears on that denomination.
Furthermore, the back of the upgraded notes now bear a family of the ‘Big 5’ animal that represents that denomination, instead of a single animal.
The perfect print registration on the lower right hand corner of the back of the banknote now contains the hidden image of the ‘Big 5’ animal representing that denomination.
Another hidden image can be found on the top right corner of the bank note, where the currency denomination is visible if you examine the banknote closely.
Sparklelive truespin is another new feature added to banknotes and causes the image of the ‘Big 5’ animal on the bottom right corner of the front of the note to change colour in correlation with the security thread when the note is tilted.
Speaking on the impact of counterfeit currency, currency integrity officer, Vuyiswa Tshatshu, warned that businesses suffered significant loss seeing as it is not possible to exchange counterfeit money for real money at the SARB.
“Counterfeiting currency is a crime and we so not compensate for proceeds of a crime,” she warned. She further cautioned that possession of counterfeit money is a criminal offence and businesses are obligated to report to the police immediately when they become aware that they are being paid with counterfeit money.
“If someone attempts to pay with a counterfeit note, refuse to accept it and inform law enforcement so they can to track where the problem is and determine if there is a syndicate operating in the area,” Tshatshu advised.
“The reason we upgrade our currency is it gives us an opportunity to use the latest security technology to ensure we stay ahead of the people who are counterfeiting,” explained head of the Currency Management Department, Pearl Kgaledi.
“We need members of the community to be our eyes and ears. The only way we are going to take out criminality is if we tell when we observe someone doing something wrong. If nothing is reported, our money is worth nothing,” Kgaledi concluded.
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