Japan yesterday began circulating its first new banknotes in 20 years, featuring 3D portraits of the founders of financial and female education institutions in an attempt to frustrate counterfeiters.
The notes use printed patterns to generate holograms of the portraits facing different directions, depending on the angle of view, employing a technology that Japan’s National Printing Bureau says is the world’s first for paper money.
“Faces of those representing Japan’s capitalism, women’s empowerment and technology innovation are on the new bills,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said at a function.
Photo: AP
The step comes just as the economy moves into a growth-driven phase for the first time in three decades, Kishida said.
Existing bills will stay in use, but train stations, parking lots and ramen shops are scrambling to upgrade payment machines as the government pushes consumers and businesses to use less cash in its bid to digitize the economy.
The new ￥10,000 (US$62) note depicts Eiichi Shibusawa (1840-1931), the founder of the first bank and stock exchange, who is often called “the father of Japanese capitalism.”
Photo: REUTERS
The new ￥5,000 bill portrays educator Umeko Tsuda (1864-1929), who founded one of the first women’s universities in Japan, while the ￥1,000 bill features a pioneering medical scientist, Shibasaburo Kitasato (1853-1931).
While Kishida talked up the latest technology to fight counterfeiting, it is not a major problem in Japan. The 681 fake banknotes police detected last year represented a sharp drop from a record high of 25,858 in 2004.
Authorities plan to print about 7.5 billion newly designed bills by the end of this fiscal year, swelling the 18.5 billion banknotes, worth ￥125 trillion, in circulation by December last year.
“Cash is a secure means of payment that can be used by anyone, anywhere and at any time, and it will continue to play a significant role” despite alternatives, Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said.
The central bank has experimented with digital currencies, but the government has made no decision whether to issue a digital yen.
Cashless payments in Japan have almost tripled over the past decade to account for 39 percent of consumer spending last year, but still lag global peers and should rise to 80 percent to boost productivity, the government has said.
Nearly 90 percent of bank ATMs, train ticket machines and retail cash registers are ready for the new bills, but only half of restaurant and parking ticket machines, the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers’ Association said.
Almost 80 percent of the nation’s 2.2 million drink vending machines also need upgrades, the association said.
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