Following the example of Australia (and more recently, Canada), the Bank of England will be printing bank notes on plastic from 2016 onwards:
Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has formally announced that Britain will switch to using plastic banknotes in 2016, ending 320 years of paper money.
After a public consultation in which 87% of the 13,000 respondents backed the new-style currency, the Bank said it would introduce “polymer” notes, as it prefers to call them, in two years’ time, starting with the new £5 note featuring Winston Churchill in 2016 and the Jane Austen £10 a year later.
Speaking at a press conference in the Bank’s Threadneedle Street headquarters, Carney said: “Our polymer notes will combine the best of progress and tradition. They will be more secure from counterfeiting and more resistant to damage while celebrating the history and tradition that is important both to the Bank and the nation as a whole.”
The move follows Carney’s native Canada, where plastic notes are being rolled out, and Australia, where they have been in circulation for more than two decades.
Carney launched a public consultation on polymer banknotes, seen as cleaner and more durable, shortly after arriving at the Bank this summer. However, the Bank’s notes division has been considering plastic money for several years.
I’m still not convinced about the Canadian polymer banknotes: they tend to stick together much more than the paper notes did and they are reportedly susceptible to “fusing” together in high heat.
