Egypt to Start Producing Plastic Banknotes by 2020

The Governor of Egypt's Central Bank, Tarek Amer recently announced the bank’s plan to launch polymer currency by the year 2020, according to Shorouk News.

Having a longer lifespan than paper currency, plastic currency is said to leave less of a footprint on the environment when compared to paper. Plastic banknotes are also already being used in a number of other countries like the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand, with the first one being issued in Australia in 1988. 

Amer adds that switching from paper to plastic will have positive benefits on Egypt's currency market and will help in decreasing printing costs as well as improve the quality of the notes. Amer goes on to explain that the new plastic banknotes will be of the same size as the current paper banknotes and with the same design. 

Plastic banknotes have the added benefit of being harder to forge than the paper ones as they are embedded with security features in that they use metameric inks . Metameric inks are inks that are of the same colour when examined under specific conditions, usually daylight but change hues under different wave lengths.

Main Image: El Wehda