Sterling to go plastic, Bank of England decides
The Bank of England will announce plans on Wednesday to press ahead with switching to plastic banknotes. The decision on polymer notes will mark the beginning of the end for 320 years of paper notes from the Bank. The move by Threadneedle Street follows Bank governor Mark Carney, from Canada, where plastic notes are being rolled out, and Australia, where they have been in circulation for more than two decades.
Carney launched a public consultation on polymer banknotes, seen as cleaner and more durable, shortly after arriving at the Bank this summer. However, the Bank's notes division has been considering plastic money for several years.
Bank officials have been touring shopping centres and business groups around the country with prototype notes to canvas public opinion and the final decision is due this week.
The Bank has promoted its polymer notes, featuring a see-through window and other new security features as tougher to counterfeit. The Bank concedes no note is counterfeit-proof but says the polymer notes will be slower and more expensive to copy.
The Bank also seeks to silence concerns about the environmental impact of printing on plastic by suggesting they can last up to six times longer than the cotton-paper notes in circulation at the moment. The durability will also compensate for the higher production costs and save an estimated £100m, the Bank claims.
The initial plan is to introduce polymer notes one denomination at a time, with the Churchill note in 2016 at the earliest and then the £10 note featuring Jane Austen next in 2017. The notes will continue to feature the Queen and retain their current colouring.
However, the prospect of polymer notes has raised some concerns for the visually impaired as the popular practice of folding or creasing notes in different ways to identify different denominations will no longer be possible. Polymer notes can be folded but will not stay tightly folded in a particular way.
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