Time for some material changes for the British Pound, literally

New Bank Of England £5 and £10 denominated polymer banknotes in circulation

Chances are that you are already acquainted with plastic legal tender notes (or the fancier name polymer banknotes) since they are already widely adopted in many countries around the world including Australia, Israel, Canada, Malaysia and New Zealand. Well the United Kingdom is the latest country to join the party with an announcement made by the Bank Of England yesterday that they will start with a £5 note in 2016 and a £10 note in 2017.

The new£5 and£10notes will retain Her Majesty The Queen’s image on one side and will respectively feature Winston Churchill and Jane Austin on the other. The central bank has conducted three years of research before taking this decision and decided to scrap cotton paper in order to optimize the durability of currency in circulation.

The Bank Of England shared its findings about the merits of plastic currency –they stay cleaner, they are more secure and are about 2.5 times more durablethan paper currency. The criteria of selecting Churchill and Austen were based on their universally recognized lasting contribution to the way that history has shaped the UK.

The pound is shaping to be one of the best performing currencies in 2014, in fact it has been beaten only by the Euro. Who would have thought at the start of the year that European currencies will be the better performers? Well they proved their ground this year, but the pick-up in volatility since yesterday’s Federal Reserve decision to start tapering its quantitative easing policy will surely increase trading volumes.

For the full press release visit the website of the Bank Of England.

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.

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