The next Bank of England £5, £10 and £20 banknotes will be printed on polymer | Hacker News Reader

The next Bank of England £5, £10 and £20 banknotes will be printed on polymer

bankofengland.co.uk

44 pointsohjeez64 comments

> The Serious Fraud Office and the Australian Federal Police are conducting a joint investigation into the activities of the employees and agents of Securency International PTY Ltd and their alleged corrupt role in securing international polymer banknote contracts.

> The trial of Peter Chapman is currently on-going and began on 4 April 2016 at Southwark Crown Court. Mr Chapman’s first court appearance was on 5 May 2015 at Westminster Magistrates Court. There he faced six charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act of allegedly making corrupt payments to an overseas official in order to secure contracts of polymer for his company, Securency. The alleged offences took place between 9 July 2007 and 18 March 2009. He has been remanded in custody.

https://www.sfo.gov.uk/cases/innovia-securency-pty-ltd/

Polymer banknotes were introduced in '88 by Australia, who switched completely to polymer in '96. Other (ex-)commonwealth nations have followed suit, so it's not that surprising Britain is switching as well.

Some Scottish banks already issue polymer-based notes.

With a plan to introduce more denominations in the near term [1] [2]

[1] http://www.rbs.com/news/2016/april/new-p5-and-p10-polymer-no...

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-3537...

The question is will they be using the same Australian printer as many of the other countries that have switched to polymer notes. Seems like a big single point failure node at this point.

A documentary I saw said that the polymer is really special and hard to produce, so probably the method is patented.

I think the Eurozone uses a different polymer printer than Australia, so the UK might just use the same as the rest of the EU.

The euro is printed on paper.

Romania is the only European country to use polymer notes.

Not anymore, at all.

For 2 years now it’s been on polymer: https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/europa/html/index.e...

That's really interesting, I didn't know that. Does anyone know what the timescale is for phasing out paper? I seen that the website mentions parallel issuance for a period - in the last year I've visited Munich and Paris and only come across paper.

I'm genuinely interested to see how the logistics of rolling out a new material will work across such a large area with so many countries and banks involved

5€ bills were replaced several years ago, 10€ bills over the course of last year, and now 20€ bills were replaced already.

The old 10€ bills stopped showing up in the change I got from stores by end of 2015, and around march 2016 the old 20€ bills stopped showing up.

Obviously, they’re still in use in several places.

And regarding the rollout: Most banks have had to accept dozens of possible payment methods, for them one more type of bills is not an issue. Producing the money is more of an issue, but the link I mentioned before has an article about that, too.

These new notes are paper. It says so on (1).

I don't live in the Eurozone, but I have a new and old €20, and the paper is the same. I have an old €50, and a new €5, and the paper is the same.

Polymer notes almost always have transparent windows, and they feel like plastic, not paper.

(1) http://www.new-euro-banknotes.eu/Euro-Banknotes/PRODUCTION

The €20 note has a transparent window, and feels like plastic.

Are you sure you have actually gotten one of the new €20 notes?

Do you have one? The window is only in the security strip, and it's clear on the reverse where the window has been cut out from the paper. The plastic is applied somehow to one side of the note.

Polymer notes like those I've used from New Zealand and Vietnam have the whole thing made from plastic, and no paper at all. Example: http://banknote.ws/COLLECTION/countries/ASI/VIE/VIE0124.htm

See, for example, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-euro-fakes-idUSBREA0C0JQ20... I can find no mention anywhere of polymer Euros.

As far as I know they’re a cotton-nylon base with plastic coating on top, in contrast to the previous cotton-paper base without coating.

That counts as plastic money, IMO.

Britain (and many other countries) use De La Rue - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_La_Rue - for printing currency. They claim to have over 70 polymer designs and 60 million notes. http://www.delarue.com/markets/central-banks-currency/polyme...

Canada also uses polymer notes now

Slightly off-topic but did anyone else find it amusing that the Bank of England website does not support HTTPS? I think that's the first bank website I've ever seen that uses HTTP only.

It's all just policy information on there. It's not online banking. It'd be nice if all sites were available on HTTPS, but it's not unusual or funny.

you mean for you :)

There are many reasons to switch to HTTPS - protecting financial data in transit is just one of them. Here's an overview with further explanations but many similar examples exist: https://snyk.io/blog/10-reasons-to-use-https/

Yes, amazingly I understand that. But it's not any more surprising or funny that the Bank of England would be on HTTP compared to any other policy website which still isn't on HTTPS.

Okay, fair point. Perhaps I did not explain myself thoroughly.

When I see bank + policy + not just some random bank but the BANK OF ENGLAND, I do expect to see HTTPS guaranteeing the integrity of what is unquestionably important and influential data being served to decision makers.

This amused me, but maybe I'm just easily amused.

One of the largest banks here in Brazil is also HTTP-only for its main website. Of course, its online banking website is HTTPS-only (and until very recently, it required the use of the RC4 cipher).

I like the Canadian plastic money. The only complaint is that when working retail you have to deal with people who fold their bills ot put them in a small wallet, and the bills are so much harder to unfold than paper making them difficult to count.

I swapped some bills with a Canadian friend when he came to visit. They're nice and space-agey, but I couldn't feel the difference between them and the receipts in my wallet. I'd miss the ability to distinguish between bills and receipts by touch if we ever moved to plastic money.

This raises an interesting point for visually impaired people. Sure, once you separate the banknotes and other paper, UK notes can be differentiated by their dimensions. But it might result in some confusion if similarly sized and textured receipts get mixed in with the banknotes.

The next generation of polymer banknotes in Australia will have a tactile feature to help visually impaired people - see http://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2015/mr-15-02.html

These new tactile notes haven't been released publicly yet.

The Canadian polymer notes have Braille on them to help visually impaired people differentiate.

We've had them in Romania for about 15 years or so. They're just great.

a) be thankful that banknotes are not being withdrawn altogether, but...

b) mention of the 50 suspicious by its absence.

The £50 has only relatively recently been reissued, and presumably lasts a long time in circulation.

There's an FAQ on the bank site, buried in a PDF, saying it will be considered later.

...more likely it is being considered for withdrawal from circulation altogether for all the usual war-on-cash reasons. Indeed, in large amounts, 500 euro notes are already selling for 515 euros for reasons of moving money outside of the banking system (demand very high in China), so as to avoid that system's prying eyes, and also for reasons of negative interest rates becoming the norm. The GBP 50 has the same bad reputation in bien pensant policy circles.

Anonymous, large-denomination notes have this amazing attribute that they are not easily controllable by politicians and central banks, the latter in their quest for negative rates particularly stymied by them. By contrast wealth in your bank account, or the dematerialized stocks and bonds that you might own, can be switched off completely with a few SQL queries, on demand.

€500 is worth £390, not really comparable.

£50 is worth less than $100, so I doubt it's of much interest to international criminals.

With inflation, it's useful in Britain, though difficult to get as only a couple of cash points in Canary Wharf dispense it.

I would hazard a guess that 50s are used so little that they're not anticipating needing a new batch of them soon enough to include in this round.

The £50 is not common in circulation, not given out by ATMs, and unpopular with retailers.

Is the US likely to follow suit?

Might as well be trading actual petrodollars.

Plastic money will have a really hard time being pushed to US conservatives.

They will treat it like an invasion of their liberty, like some sort of socialist/libertarian push with some sort of a secret agenda.

And some more pragmatic reason: the exorbitant cost to replace the high number of vending machines nationwide so that they would take the new polymer notes.

And money interests: On the other hand... when the US introduced the new dollar coins, two senators took up the fight to ensure that dollar bills would continue to be printed, and in fact, that promotion of the new coins wouldn't be allowed to disparage paper currency. By astonishing coincidence, one of these senators was Trent Lott, who's constituents sold much of the cotton used to make make paper currency, and the other was Ted Kennedy, whose constituency included the Crane Paper Company, which had a contract to provide the actual sheets on which currency was printed.

> Plastic money will have a really hard time being pushed to US conservatives.

> They will treat it like an invasion of their liberty, like some sort of socialist/libertarian push with some sort of a secret agenda.

What the heck are you talking about? That makes absolutely no sense and I would need to see some sources of that. I'm a conservative and anything that cheapens the cost of currency is good. Heck, I know a lot of conservatives that wouldn't mind getting rid of the $1 and $5 bills for coins since it would save money over the long term.

It doesn't make sense. Which is why it's infuriating. But it's not at all uncommon from the Far Right. Not a whole lot they stand for (or they or their "leaders" say [0]) makes sense. Further, if the idea is introduced by someone that self identifies as a Democrat - or the Tea Party identifies as "not conservative enough" - it will be opposed to the point of calling for a government shutdown.

This isn't new in the US. If you're actually surprised, you haven't been paying attention.

Then again, you are probably (assumption warning) a reasonable conservative, and would never identify with the Tea Party. It may not have been fair of GP to say "conservative" so inclusively, but the TP has become the face of the Republican Party, especially to those of us on the outside.

[0] http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/matt-taibbi-on-the...

> Then again, you are probably (assumption warning) a reasonable conservative, and would never identify with the Tea Party.

You'd be wrong there, but I get the fact you have no clue what anyone in the Tea Party actually believes. FreedomWorks continues to be spot on about a lot of issues.

I don't read Rolling Stone as they seem to make up quite a lot.

and once again, where is this Republicans hate plastic money crap?

It's not about the plastic money, it's about "change" being dictated by the Federal Government and "imposed" on the states/people.

It's a lightning rod and an opportunity for politicians to manufacture outrage, like the other poster said.

Money is a known function of the Federal Government. They change stuff all the time. The state quarters were quite popular.

Once again, I don't believe any of this foolishness about Republicans opposing the changing of bills to a different material other that any Senator / Rep of any party that has a special interest in the sourcing.

...but I get the fact you have no clue...

You're wrong. But I can only tell you that, I certainly can't make you believe it.

The Tea Party is full of climate change deniers [0], Birther adherents [1], people that believe Obama is a Muslim/traitor/both [2], people that advocate for a return to the gold standard [3], anti-vaxers [4], people who don't believe in evolution [5], obstructionists [6], and so much more. These ideas are expressed by Tea Party candidates, leaders, and elected officials, not just fringe-groups.

So yeah, I don't put it past the Tea Party to be against anything Democrats might express support for. It's really not that outlandish.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/11/01/on...

[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/poll-birther-myth-persists-among...

[2] http://sanantonioteaparty.us/can-america-survive-obamas-pro-...

[3] http://www.teapartypatriots.org/monetary-policy/

[4] http://m.sgo.sagepub.com/content/5/3/2158244015602752

[5] http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/22/poll-tea-party-opin...

[6] http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/senate-gop-decides-no-hearin...

I love the Dan Grossman's HN Replies, but I really got to learn not to check it before I go to bed. For a discussion on why someone would want / not want an American hero on a currency, I find this discussion to be about as fun as the SDA stuff earlier in the year.

Only one of your sources is an actual Tea Party organization and the rest have printed some poorly researched crud about any group right of center. I guess the Jay Leno principle of finding the fringe of a crowd and asking questions to make fun on TV works fine for newspapers. The one is basically the old libertarian thought on currency. I also love how the title of your reference [2] actually contradicts what you say about it. As to [4], most anti-vaxers are well off liberals while the right has some religious folks, the rest of the conservatives do what our doctors tell us. I wonder if Speaker Tip O'Neill would say about obstructions given he shut down the government 14 times.

But I guess I should reply in-kind, that's what we do after all.

The President we are replacing on the $20 was a Democrat with a horrendous record on money and Native Americans. A Democratic President re-segregated the Federal Government{1} and allowed the biggest KKK rally in DC. President Truman was a paid member of the KKK ($10 membership fee), and let's not forget Senator Byrd more recently. I could go on, but you get the point and I would hate to stray from why the choice of Harriet Tubman is so important by bringing up such things as Democrats having supported for President a person who allowed a woman to suffocate in a submerged car{2}.

As to the original point of this foolishness, the conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party folks I follow on social media are extremely pleased to have a genocidal Democrat President replaced by a deeply-religious, gun-toting, Republican, African-American woman{3} whose story really needs to be told. Many would love the bill to feature the drawing from the cover of Harriet Tubman, conductor on the Underground Railroad 1st Harper Trophy ed. by Ann Petry{4}.

1} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

2} https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident#Testim...

3} http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/04/harriet-tubman... (although being Mother Jones, he is a bit bitter about the actual facts)

4} https://openlibrary.org/books/OL3702580M/Harriet_Tubman_cond...

You seem to be fighting a battle on several fronts, our thread was about opposition to using polymer over paper, nothing at all about who's on what bill.

That said, I find it not at all surprising that you, identifying as a right-leaning person, dismiss all scientific surveys and studies as leftist propaganda. That's a common calling card of the Tea Party. I didn't link to all Tea Party sites because I didn't want you to claim I was only linking to fringe websites. Seems it wouldn't matter what I linked to. Facts don't have much sway over belief.

Edit: actually two of my sources were Tea Party sites, not one, and anti-vaccine movement is rather bipartisan - that doesn't mean loud voices in the Tea Party aren't strongly anti-vaccine. Read the articles linked. http://www.vice.com/read/weird-politics-of-anti-vaxxers-203

> dismiss all scientific surveys and studies as leftist propaganda

I don't, I dismiss certain biased reporters. I have a great love of science, and have had to deal with scientific (and not so scientific social) studies for years. I believe that it is very important to understand the manner and methods of any study.

> That's a common calling card of the Tea Party.

That's common FUD from people trying to demean others.

> I didn't link to all Tea Party sites because I didn't want you to claim I was only linking to fringe websites.

Pretty sad logic when you don't actually ask people what their specific beliefs are but instead pick websites with a party to promote and people to dismiss.

> Seems it wouldn't matter what I linked to. Facts don't have much sway over belief.

Facts are very important, hearsay not so much. I'm getting a little sick of these political hit articles being taken as facts.

> anti-vaccine movement is rather bipartisan

Anti-vaccine, as I pointed out unlike your original accusation, has some narrow demographics (rich educated liberal, various narrow religions) and using it any political argument is really pushing it. It also wraps a lot of beliefs about people vs state in a dense heart-breaking package. It probably flared a bit this year since the flu shots didn't seem to select the correct viruses for this year in certain areas.

I'm really done with this, you want to demonize me by telling me what I believe, and I was just interested in polymer money and happy Harriet Tubman is going to be replacing a foul man on the $20. I do notice you didn't bother to answer any of the things I pointed out, but I guess never go off the attack is a fine strategy.

I didn't tell you what you believe. I told you what a majority (or vocal minority) of Tea Party people believe. You can dismiss it six ways from Sunday but it doesn't make it less true. Parties have platforms, not everyone in the party is 100% on board with them, but major, world-renowned journals and journalists reporting on facts that don't fit your worldview seem to be bothersome to you. They're still no less facts.

In any case, I'm also done. This is a circular conversation, obviously going nowhere.

They said conservatives but they meant Republicans. It's exactly the sort of manufactured outrage they've excelled at milking recently- create a scandal, claim the "patriotic"/change-resistant side, and use it to create fear of the enemy.

(Switch in Democrat instead of Republican, and "progressive"/faux-scientific, and I'm sure you can think of some recent examples on "the other side." It's a disease of politics, not of a particular viewpoint.)

Want hard examples? Look at Ben Carson's statement regarding putting Harriet Tubman on the 20, and the fact that it's turned into a big deal at all.

> Want hard examples? Look at Ben Carson's statement regarding putting Harriet Tubman on the 20, and the fact that it's turned into a big deal at all.

The big deal for Tubman was putting her on the 10. Putting her on the 20 has a lot of conservative / Republican support. A current Republican meme is an action pose for a book cover should be the picture.

To the original point, I have seen no evidence in the Republican party of fear of plastic (well, polymer money). Whatever cuts the cost.

You're getting downvotes but I know you're right. People underestimate crazy but it always shows up.

Honestly I hope not, we have polymer notes in Canada and they tear horribly. I have lost bills just pulling them out of my wallet, most tellers will not take them unless you mend them first.

U.S. bills are excellent, and I would encourage them to continue printing them as-is.

That's my impression too, and I've always been impressed at the longevity of US banknotes. Unless they actually start to rot, or are torn apart, they are shockingly tough.

Darnit, I was hoping the polymer notes would have a much longer life. Is the Canadian notes the same types as the Australian or New Zealand ones?

I'm sure there are excellent polymers they could use. The one they do use gets brittle with temperature changes: really bad in Canada. The material tears effortlessly once a tear has started. Honestly, I think it's just a matter of it being amorphous rather than fibrous.

If they make fibrous bills, they will likely circulate much longer.

The new polymer-fibrous Euro bills are really awesome.

They survive far more wear and tear than dollar notes or old Euro bills.

(Which is why small notes were switched first)

> (Which is why small notes were switched first)

That's good planning although I still wish the $1 coin would catch on. Its good to hear at least one attempt at material advance works. Is it cheaper over the long run than the dollar notes?

Well, the Eurozone never had 1€ or 2€ bills, and already is doing test runs regarding switching 5€ to coins[1].

But yes, Polymer notes survive about 4 times longer (2 years instead of half a year for the 5€ bill) than paper notes.

Now you might think 6 months would be very short for bills, but 5€ bills are the most circulated bills in the western world.

________________________

[1] The design of the 5€ coins that you can currently get in Germany (they’re legal tender): http://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/aBrmYAZ_700b_v1.jpg

Its really hard for product designers to get how problematic temperatures are in Canada and the upper plain states. It comes up a lot when dealing with poor people and vehicles. You need to keep it running in -20F / -29C to 100F / 38C. Heck, I remember one winter (89?) where the temp went from 60F to -20F in one day. That was problematic.

We also have polymer money here, but my experience is vastly different.

The notes are basically impossible to tear by hand. At most you can "stretch" them around the point you are trying to make a rip at. We are talking about around 1 minute of effort (and your fingers will hurt a little after).

This video shows some serious abuse of an $100 canadian polymer bill (especially around 1:30) : https://youtu.be/y5WWKldu9IA?t=90

The Bank of England has a very good reputation for reimbursing people with damaged notes: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/damaged_bankn...

US as well

http://www.moneyfactory.gov/submitaclaim.html

Honestly I've never seen a teared polymer bill yet, whereas the paper did tear up after being folded over and over. You do have to be careful to keep them away from heat though (driers, space heaters etc), they shrivel up.

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