Beware of fake :New Kenyan currency has this features

Do you know how to identify fake Kenyan currency? Read carefully not miss anything

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) has unveiled Kenya’s new generation coins that will start circulating this Tuesday.

However, despite the growing use of mobile and card payments, majority of Kenyans still make their transactions in cash leaving us wide open to the problem of counterfeit notes especially now that the new currency is out.

The Central Bank of Kenya is the only authorized issuer of new currencies and its bad news for anyone who finds themselves unwittingly holding a counterfeit note because they are totally worthless as there is no way of getting it replaced with a genuine one.

The new currency, which was gazetted on Tuesday, contains features that make it accessible to visually impaired people.

The new generation coins, whose unveiling was presided over by President Uhuru Kenyatta in the capital Nairobi, will be available in denominations of Sh1, Sh5, Sh10 and Sh20.Related image

And unlike the old coins that had portraits of former presidents Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi, the new legal tender features Kenya’s wildlife, as follows:

Sh1: Bears the image of a giraffe
Sh5: Bears the image of a rhino
Sh10: Bears the image of a lion
Sh20: Bears the image of an elephant.
Sh1 coins weighs 5.5g and are silver in colour while the Sh5 coin weighs 3.75g with a diameter of 19.5mm.

 

The Sh10 coin weighs five grammes, is 23mm in diameter with a yellow outer and silver inner.

The new Sh20 coin weighs nine grammes with a diameter of 26mm. It is silver on the outer side and yellow inside.

These coins contain distinct easily recognizable security features to facilitate the detection of genuine notes vis-a-vis forgeries.

According to Central Bank, the number of fake currency in circulation has reduced significantly over the past few years because they introduced a number of new security features making the current banknotes very difficult to forge.

The unveiling of the new currency is in line with provisions of the 2010 Constitution that banned the use of presidential portraits on Kenyan currency.

The phase-out of the old-generation coins, CBK said, will be gradual, with the new currency coins will circulate alongside the existing ones.

Sh1 coins weighs 5.5g and are silver in colour while the Sh5coin weighs 3.75g with a diameter of 19.5mm.

Is it possible to have fake coins in the streets of Nairobi?

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