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Measures to combat fake notes 

With more and more counterfeit currency notes coming into  circulation, the Central Bank is keen to ensure that the public is aware of the pitfalls they should avoid by inspecting the currency notes carefully.

 Currency Superintendent, Central Bank, Chitra Ariyaratne said mostly Rs. 100, Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes are forged than others, possibly because they have better value.

According to Ariyaratna, there are security features contained in the notes issued by the Central Bank. Some of them are visible to the naked eye while some could be detected only by inspecting them through an ultra violet lamp. What could be easily seen are the watermark and the lion mark.

Old currency notes have a brightly shining lion image but in the new notes, the lion's sword shines brighter than the lion image. The second security feature is the security thread on the left side. Skillful manufacturers of counterfeit currency notes have developed a technique of using silver paper for forging  purposes in order to counter the security feature.

In 2002 the Central Bank introduced a star wide thread as a special security feature to overcome the problem and also adopted a special printing technique known as the intaglio printing system. 

There is another feature known as the multi layer latent image. It is a foolproof feature which states the value of the note which is invisible to the naked eye but detectable only through a multi layer latent image.

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