Read, then look, BSP urges Consumers before paying

BSP MANILA, December 1 (PIA) –Over the mounting complaints of the hard to distinguish colors of the New Generation Currency (NGC) which the central bank is circulating as legal tender, a key official of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it is high time that people should read and not just look.

In 2010, the BSP started replacing the New Design Series (NDS) of banknotes which started circulation in 1985.

As the BSP is slowly demonetizing the 30 year old NDS, the NGC replaces it as legal tender, explains BSP deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo, at a forum held at the central bank’s conference room, December 1. 

The NGC is still using generally the same color schemes as the NDS, with a little bit of tweaking, brightening up the colors, BSP said.

But with the new development, the central bank has accordingly received complaints about the hard to distinguish colors that are now being used.

Complaints bared that the P500 bill, which is yellow can be easily taken as P20, which is close to being orangey. The blue P1000 is also having an uncanny appearance of the P100.

But, BSP Deputy governor Guinigundo downplayed the issue saying “there is an extra zero in P1000.”

“The solution is a society that reads, we need to teach our people to read and not just look at the colors, Guinigundo urged information center managers from all over the country gathered at the BSP.

Pressing for proof on his claims, the deputy governor pointed out that dollar economies only have green banknotes, and still they do not have problems.

We have simply added the colors of the banknotes to help people determine the money, he noted.

Unless one is so drunk or visually incapacitated, he can not really be expected to correctly identify the money, Guinigundo added. 

Among the new colors are bright orange (P20), bright red (P50), ube (P100), bright green (P200), bright yellow (P500) and bright blue P1000.

As this floods the markets, the older NDS become unacceptable as legal tender for daily transactions starting January 1, 2016. On this date, only the NGC would be used for daily transactions, Guinigundo said.

Over this, authorities are asking people to spend their old banknotes now before they can not be accepted as legal payments come January 1.

Failing to do that, holders of old banknotes would have to exchange such in the banks, as these financial institutions are still mandated to accept the notes for exchange until the end of 2016. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)