Pakistan among countries that have banned notes

The Indian government’s decision late on Wednesday to ban all currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 denominations has many comparisons globally.

Governments across the world have decided to ban currency notes in circulation, rendering huge amounts of cash useless overnight, due to a plethora of reasons. These include fighting counterfeiting, stopping terror activities or like in India’s case, battling black money.

Some notable examples are Zimbabwe, Australia and Pakistan.

Due to chronic hyperinflation in Zimbabwe, the government was at one point printing a currency note with a face value of one hundred trillion dollars. This obviously rendered lesser denominations obsolete, which were taken out of circulation quickly.

In 1996, Australia became the first country to have a full series of circulating polymer bank notes after replacing all paper-based notes, which the government systemically made non-tender for legal purposes. To stop widespread counterfeiting, the Reserve Bank of Australia had released the world's first long lasting and counterfeit-resistant polymer (plastic) banknotes.

Closer home, Pakistan has decided to phase out all currency notes with old designs. From December 1, all currency notes across denominations will cease to be legal tender in Pakistan. Islamabad has been trying to bring in new designs and security features to its currency. However, its citizens have nearly a year and half to exchange old notes. The country had earlier demonetised 5 and 500 denomination notes.

To deter counterfeiting, Switzerland has a reserve series of notes. A series of Swiss Franc 10 notes were printed by the Swiss National Bank in 1984. But the notes were never issued and the notes are currently still in reserve.