Bank of Canada to Issue New Bank Notes

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

Here we go. "Made in Canada eh?"

Further more, the Globe and Mail added an article in today's newspaper.  Here's an excerpt.

"Ottawa will rely on a sole supplier - an Australian company - of the special polymer bank-note material. In theory, the material's scarcity means fraudsters will be hard pressed to create matching notes.

Note Printing Australia Ltd. makes all of Australia's bank notes and is the only polymer bank note producer in the land down under, according to employees reached there last night. The subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia, which issues the notes, uses technology developed by Securency International, "the world leader in secure polymer substrate technology," its website reads.

Australia's bank trumpets the country's polymer notes as being recyclable and durable.

The plastic bills will allow the Bank of Canada to design more elaborate banknotes - with clear windows in them, for instance - as well as extra embedded security measures.

Plastic banknotes, first developed in Australia, tend to cost more than paper currency but the Bank of Canada's Ms. Girard said this country will end up having to print far less bills overall - which is where the savings will accrue."

With the emission of  the new serie on polymer, the signature combination Macklem-Carney should be a short one on paper, especially if there is only "printed in 2011" notes...

But I would not bet my head on a official release in 2011.   Remember the Journey's serie, which has been delayed at least two years from its initial schedule...

With the emission of  the new serie on polymer, the signature combination Macklem-Carney should be a short one on paper, especially if there is only "printed in 2011" notes...

But I would not bet my head on a official release in 2011.   Remember the Journey's serie, which has been delayed at least two years from its initial schedule...

When were the journey notes first expected? I always thought that the journey notes were scheduled for 2001 and were released on schedule early jan. 01 with no delays.

I really hope they do something really cool with the notes. Something along the lines of maybe a multicoloured hologram denoting the denomination within the transparent window of the note.

That would definitely be eye catching and very very difficult to counterfeit

I have a 50 Thai Bhat note I got while in Thailand. It has a clear window with the king in it. I think it's a polymer too. Really nice note. I think it would be cool if our new currency had a clear window with the approprite PM in it.

My question is, does QEII stay on the $20?

About my previous post, I should have said that the emission of the "improved" serie with the holographic stripe has been delayed since originally, the entire serie would have been made on the "first" paper (used on the 5's and 10's). Maybe not delayed by two years, however (more probably one year).

They changed their mind when they discovered that the counterfeiting wasn't stopped as much as wanted, (it wasn't long before the first counterfeited Journey's notes has appeared on the street) so they had to modifiy the original design of the unissued denominations to accomodate the "new" paper's security features.  And later they modified the 5$ and 10$ to complete the serie on the new paper.

I have a question...
Will the British American Bank note Company (BABN) And the Canadian Bank note Company (CBN) still be responsible for printing the 2011 series notes since polymer notes originate out of Australia?

I would assume that BAI and CBN would retain the printing contracts. Just because the substrate comes from Australia doesn't mean they're printed there. CBN (at least, possibly also BAI) has plenty of experience printing on polymer.

It's official. The Bank of Canada has announced new polymer notes for late 2011.

For those who are interested in HOW the sheet of polymer are made, you can look at this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTggA4jVPj0

Enjoy!

I have a 50 Thai Bhat note I got while in Thailand. It has a clear window with the king in it. I think it's a polymer too. Really nice note. I think it would be cool if our new currency had a clear window with the approprite PM in it.

My question is, does QEII stay on the $20?

I have the feeling that we will the same people on the same denomination as was the case since 1969...
$5 Laurier, $10 MacDonald, $20 Queen Elizabeth, $50 M King, $100 Borden.

Though it would interesting if they were to change it around a little, or perhaps put new PMs on our notes. Make the $20 blue instead of green, Make the $10 Green instead of purple etc
I wouldn't count on it though, can you imagine the confusion! 

Question...
Does anyone think the size of our notes would be reduced?

I would instead like to get rid of the PMs and put peoples who have made real contributions in the history of the country in different ereas: explorers, inventors,  scientists, artists, etc...Australia put many remarkable peoples on his banknotes, New-Zealand too (think about Sir Edmund Hillary on the 5$).

Is the Canada so poor in remarkable peoples that we can't find some to honor our paper plastic money?  We can only find old PMs?  If we hold so much on old PMs, let put Lester B. Pearson, who got a Nobel Prize (Peace) for his creation of the UN Peacekeepers (Blue Helmets), in place of say, the queen.

Question...
Does anyone think the size of our notes would be reduced?

No, the size of our banknotes will remain the same.

The Bank recently published an article in the Bank of Canada Review entitled Making Bank Notes Accessible for Canadians Living with Blindness or Low Vision. In it, the author is talking about some of the accessibility features that were under consideration in 1978 when the Birds series was being developed, saying:

Although different-sized notes are often the first-mentioned choice of individuals living with blindness and low vision, and are found in many major industrialized countries, this change would have substantially increased the cost of handling bank notes for most businesses and individuals. Automated banking machines, cash registers, note counting/processing equipment, and even wallets would need to be modified or replaced to handle substantially smaller and larger notes than those currently in circulation.

Source: Bank of Canada

Canadians are so highly politicized these days that any debate on who should appear on the new series of notes will likely cause divisiveness and anger.  I'm not saying this to be insulting, just stating what should be quite obvious.  Just look at the ruckus that was caused in the past fortnight when it was suggested that the national anthem should be updated with a couple of word changes.  Any change to any of our national institutions will be fodder for some political hack to make hay and score points in the polls.

Leave it up to the Bank of Canada.  They'll probably do whatever they want without outside consultation anyhow!