Although there has been a rapid rise in cashless payments (credit and debit cards) worldwide, still many people prefer to have cash in hand. For this, they tend to rely on paper money. However, paper currency is no more a paper but a high-tech plastic bank note.
More than two dozen countries, from Romania to Vietnam and Israel have switched from old-fashioned paper notes to polymer ones. Recently, The Bank of England announced that the Sir Winston Churchill £5 note would be made with plastic in 2016. Fiji and Canada also discarded their paper notes for plastic in 2013, and Australia as we all know has been the harbinger of plastic money usage since the late 1980’s.
Pros of plastic currency:
The plastic banknotes are more environmental friendly and last much longer than paper ones. These non-paper notes are more secure. Plastic notes are made from a thin, clear plastic film that can be printed on like paper. By turning to plastic, banks worldwide can slow or even extinguish the counterfeiting act by the criminals. These notes have holograms and other images, which are hard to forge.
Besides being more secure, the new banknotes are also tough and cleaner than paper currency. Another benefit of the plastic -based currency is that it can also be recycled and survive scorching heat and freezing temperatures. The best part is – you can even clean them by wiping them with water.
These new notes are not without problems. Few cons related to plastic notes are:
A typical problem faced by many people is while putting these plastic notes into their wallet. You cannot fold plastic notes. Owing to its slippery texture, it is tough to count these notes. Nigeria opted back their old-fashioned paper notes because they found the ink on the notes fading under the blazing sun. Nigerian bus conductors and other merchants simply rejected the blurred notes.
We can conclude this article by saying that every new technology always has some downside to it. This does not make the whole technology worthless. And the same goes for these plastic bank notes. They are any day better than the paper notes in terms of security. As far as its downside is concerned, we are sure the banks must have a way out for that.
