TACLOBAN CITY—The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is on track in its demonetization program as Filipinos are now more aware of the need to replace the decades-old peso bills, a Monetary Board official said on Tuesday.
Monetary Board Member Felipe M. Medalla voiced optimism there should be no problem in the transition from the New Design series (NDS) banknotes issued in 1986 to the New Generation currency (NGC) banknotes launched in 2010.
“You will notice that there are only very few old banknotes circulating. We are very confident that by the end of this year, the replacement of new design will be very smooth,” said Medalla, who was here on Tuesday as keynote speaker of the 2015 awards ceremony.
The NDS will only be used for daily transactions until December 31. Next year the old banknotes may be exchanged in banks with the NGC bills.
The BSP has stepped up its information drive on the importance of using the new banknotes to combat the production of counterfeit money.
“It will be more difficult for anyone to counterfeit because the BSP has upgraded the security features in all of our new-generation banknotes. This is to make easier for the public to protect themselves from receiving fake money,” Medalla added.
The P500 and the P1,000 notes have optically variable device (OVD) patches that change color from green to red and red to green.
Unlike the old banknotes, the NGS have the OVD patch with BSP logo, amount of the currency and the hero or president watermark.