According to preliminary estimates, over the course of several months banks will have to destroy several billion banknotes and more than 100,000 tons of coins. At present, in the twelve countries of the euro zone, currency in circulation amounts to 335.2 billion euros (about 284 billion dollars).
French commercial banks fear that the huge amounts of money that will be collected and then sent to the central bank for destruction may attract great interest from robbers, and they are stocking up on special machines that will punch holes in the money, thereby indicating that it has been withdrawn from circulation. The collected money will likely be burned. The coins are to be melted down. Some of them may be used to mint euros.
In Germany, the Bundesbank intends to collect about 2,800 tons of German marks, which will be burned. Before that, all banknotes will be passed through a document shredder to remove temptation from bank employees who will be burning the money. As for coins, they will be melted down, but not into euros, because the composition of the euro differs from that of the mark.
BILLIONS OF GERMAN EUROS WILL HAVE TO BE DISCARDED
325 million banknotes with a face value of 100 euros each (totaling 32.5 billion euros, or about 32.5 billion dollars) will soon be destroyed, reports the BBC.
At present, selected printing firms in Europe are preparing for the introduction of euro cash in January 2002. By that time, contractors must print 14 billion banknotes of various denominations.
One of the contractors is the German firm Giesecke & Devrient. To date, it has printed a batch of 325 million banknotes with a face value of 100 euros and handed it over to the German state bank (Bundesbank). There it was discovered that each banknote contains a certain inaccuracy that does not match the approved specimen and renders the entire batch invalid.
Now all these papers are subject to destruction, and a new batch will be printed in their place, at a cost of 30 million German marks.
THE DOLLAR IS WORTH MORE THAN WE THINK
Recently, the US Department of the Treasury sold 44,000 one-dollar banknotes for $261.8 thousand (or $5.95 per banknote). These are quite ordinary banknotes, of no interest to collectors. They have only one distinctive feature for which people pay six times more – four eights in the serial number.
For people of Asian descent, four eights in the serial number mean good luck, and that is why such banknotes are so popular. The Treasury's Bureau of Engraving and Printing said that, not counting the recent large sale, they had managed to sell about $70,000 worth of such 'lucky banknotes' to thousands of people around the world.
Edward Shikhan, a market manager at the Treasury, said the banknotes are 'very popular'. 'It is not only good luck for the people buying these banknotes, but also a lucky venture for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing,' he said. 'For $5.95, consumers receive banknotes placed in a red frame with the inscription in Chinese: "Lucky Money".'
Shikhan said the idea of selling such banknotes came from Treasury employees of Chinese origin. And such banknotes were introduced in October 2000. At that time, they managed to sell 3,000 banknotes at $3.95. The bulk of banknotes with such serial numbers are bought by Asians, Shikhan said. According to him, you have a chance to get such a banknote in ordinary circulation, but the probability is too small.
GREENBACK IS ALSO A SOURCE OF INFECTION
While Ukrainian politicians struggle with money laundering in the figurative sense, American scientists have found that it is already time to take measures to launder money in the literal sense of the word. Some dollar bills turned out to be not just dirty, but also hazardous to health.
As a special study conducted in the US showed, the green banknotes loved both by our compatriots and by Americans often serve as breeding grounds for dangerous diseases for their holders. Five of the 68 dollar bills studied were found to be infected with a bacterium that poses a threat to absolutely healthy people – it develops in the human body resistance to the effects of some types of drugs.
On the surface of the other 59 notes, viruses commonly found in hospitals were detected. In the report of the American Society for Microbiology, scientists considered only four banknotes to be clean.
In essence, there is nothing surprising in the results of this study. It simply confirms the long-standing assumption that bacteria accumulate on banknotes as they pass from hand to hand. The other thing is that the American dollar, being the most popular currency circulating worldwide, has also turned out to be a serious carrier of all sorts of infection – like some rats or flies. So it is time for deputies to adopt a new law on money laundering. For the purpose of disinfecting them.
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