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It was the Chinese in the
7th Century who began the use of paper money. In the Western World,
for most of it's history, paper money has had a dubious history.
However, with the dropping of Gold and Silver as backing, paper
money has been the legal tender of modern nations. "Death to
Counterfeiters" was inscribed on bills issued by the States and the
Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War. As I write this
article, The U.S. Government has announced adding color to its
currency in an attempt to solve a counterfeiting problem. In the
21st Century, the availability of color copiers, digital printers,
and scanners make the counterfeiting of paper money an easy task.
Also paper is a durability problem.
Even the high fiber content silk and cotton of the US one dollar bill only lasts
22 months. In poorer countries having a more humid climate and using weaker
paper their currency has a much shorter life span.
In 1988, after years of research, Note
Printing Australia, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia,
produced its first polymer currency sheets. Today, twenty-one (21)
nations use polymer for some or all of their notes. As the Bank of
Mexico (Banco de Mexico has pointed out, while the notes cost
three times more to produce, they remain in circulation and can be
folded just like their paper counterparts, these polymer notes
resist tearing and hold their colors more strongly.
Also, every polymer note
has a clear window where some sort of "watermark" can be placed.
Those features, plus the unique feel of polymer, makes a possible
counterfeiter's job much harder.
Countries using polymer include: Australia
(all notes), Bangladesh, Brazil, Brunei, China, Indonesia, Ireland,
Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand (all notes), Papua New
Guinea, Romania (all notes), Samoa, Singapore, Soloman Islands, Sri
Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Zambia is to issue its first
polymer note this year. |
