New $20 won't be long

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In a  CBC interview

Jokes aside, Carney said the Bank of Canada is putting the "finishing touches" on the new polymer $20 bill which features a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and is scheduled for release later this year.

Its just a small bit at the bottom of the post found at
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/04/21/pol-the-house-mark-carney.html?cmp=rss

Wonder what they mean by "finishing touches"... I'm pretty sure both CBN and BAI have been already printing the twenties for months to get the 600 million notes ready for the release in the end for the year. I think the $20 note will be unveiled in May or June.

"And later in the year we will have to reprogram again for the new $20 polymer bills," he said.

The Bank of Canada began issuing the new plasticized currency last year, starting with $100 and $50 notes, with the more common $20 coming this fall and $10 and $5 bills next year.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/lighter-loonies-toonies-causing-headaches-vending-parking-machines-202448810.html

Check out flickr for images. I like them!!! (at least the back  )

As for BAI, they're shutting down - http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2011/12/01/ottawa-layoffs-bank-note-company.html. End of 2012. Have they printed any polymers? Do we know? Yes, there are 50's with 'A' as the first letter of the prefix, but I  can't imagine that it wouldn't be really hard for CBN to print 50's with a prefix of AHU or FHN. Remember the matching sets of Birds and Journey's? To paraphrase the Charlton catalog - "printed by CBN even though 'B' normally means BAI" (or something like that). How about the Birds 20's? There's a series printed that begins with the wrong first letter for that company because the Bank of Canada told them to print that prefix.

With the demise of BAI, one could assume that the first letter of the prefix now means nothing (unless Note Printing Australia has started printing our notes. Could you imagine the shipping???).

Constructive counterpoints are appreciated.

John