Seychelles: New Series of Coins and Banknotes to be Issued in December 2016

[Bimat]

Seychelles to issue new banknotes and coins in December

Victoria, Seychelles | November 3, 2016, Thursday @ 15:1

(Seychelles News Agency) - New banknotes and coins with enhanced security features will enter into circulation in Seychelles on Dec. 5, the island nation's Central Bank said Thursday. Thirty-five species of Seychellois flora and fauna, including the Aldabra giant tortoise and pitcher plant, will feature on the currency.

Four different-sized paper banknotes 500 rupees, 100 rupees, 50 rupees, and 25 rupees and seven denominations of coins -- 10 rupees (previously a bank note) 5 rupees, 1 rupee, 25 cents, 10 cents, 5 cents, and 1 cent will be introduced.

The current banknotes and coins will remain legal tender and will be in circulation until they are officially demonetized by the Central Bank of Seychelles. The current banknotes and coins have been in circulation since 1998 and 1982 respectively.

"We don't encourage the public to change their money in bulk as this will put pressure on demand. Members of the public will get the new banknotes and coins when they transact or get money from banks and this will happen gradually," said Head of Banking Services Mike Tirant.

The Central Bank of Seychelles said new and improved security features have been included in the notes and coins which "will offer better protection against counterfeiting." Central Bank Governor Caroline Abel said that the need to enhance the currency's security features "is in line with national and international expectations for better quality banknotes and coins."

The new currency series is themed "Seychelles' Unique Biodiversity the backbone of our economy," Abel said.

"The design of the new family of banknotes and coins incorporates the beauty of the Seychelles' endemic flora and fauna as thematic icons," said Abel.

Revealing the new currency during a news conference, Tirant said the general changes in the banknotes include their design and orientation, where the writings can now be read both vertically and horizontally. Presently the writings on the bank notes can only be read horizontally.

A uniform font and format have also been used for the texts on the banknotes and coins which will appear in all three national languages -- English, French and Creole.

Tirant said the aim is "to celebrate our trilingual heritage." The Seychelles flag also feature on all the notes and coins. Tirant added that the public will also notice a change in the size of the bank notes.

"The 500 rupees will be smaller than current banknotes and each denomination will be smaller from the highest to lowest," he said.

With regards to the change from the 10 rupee note which will now feature as a coin, Tirant said this is due to the fact that the 10 rupee banknotes are usually the first to get spoiled. He noted that 290,000 10 rupee banknotes have been removed from circulation and replaced in 2016.

New features that will allow visually impaired persons to differentiate the bank notes is another new addition.

"There is a tactile raised print feature on all banknotes. For example there will be small coco-de-mer nuts on all the notes -- two coco-de-mer on the 25 rupee note, three on the 50 rupee, four on the 100 rupee and five coco-de-mer on the 500 rupee note," Tirant explained.

The Central Bank of Seychelles said that to ensure a smooth transition, certain elements of the design have been retained, such as the general colour scheme of the banknotes, although Tirant said the new colours are more vibrant. The most noticeable change is in the 500 rupee note, which will appear predominantly yellow instead of its present orange-brown colour.

The Seychelles' reserve bank said that 5 million copies of each denominations have been manufactured and they will be issued periodically based on demand from commercial banks.

The last time Seychelles issued new bank notes was in 2011, when the 100 rupee banknotes were replaced with new ones. It took two years to remove all of the old notes from circulation.

Tirant said the switch will not affect the economy.

"There might be a perception that this will have an impact on inflation, but it's not the case as we are not changing the denominations or changing the values, but rather replacing them. So everything remains the same," he said Tirant.

The Central Bank said it has cost some 35 million rupees [around $2.6 million] to produce the new currency series, which has been timed with the commemoration of Seychelles' 40 years of independence, in June this year.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

[Bimat]

The official press release by Central Bank of Seychelles is here.



Aditya

[Bimat]

Better image of coins from the press release.

Aditya

[<k>]

Well  done, Aditya. 

1 cent: Gardiner's tree frog
5 cents: black snail
10 cents: swiftlet
25 cents: jellyfish tree
1 rupee: "King of Seychelles" butterfly
5 rupees: Pitcher plant
10 rupees: Aldabra giant tortoise

Who minted them? The South Africans?  Probably we will never find out who designed them.

 

[Jostein]

  pretty coins!!

The 10 rupee coins is a masterpiece! Bimetallic, heptagonal and with latent image

Happy with this news.

Thanks!

[Jostein]

And also let's welkome a new country to our bimetallic family

[malawi]

Thanks for news !!

Fantastic coins and beautiful banknotes !!!! NICE !!!!

[Bimat]

Guess who broke the story first on internet.

The news became viral on social media as well, I saw quite a few posts on Facebook / Twitter regarding the new series. The buzz was probably due to sudden announcement? But I agree that it's a beautiful set!

Aditya

[eurocoin]

Great news indeed although I am not so fond of the designs.

[Bimat]

(Perhaps) The only Seychelles coins I have...and they are nice!!!

Aditya

[eurocoin]

Who minted them? The South Africans?  Probably we will never find out who designed them.

The 1 Rupee, 5 Rupees and 10 Rupees coins will be minted at The Royal Mint
The 1 cent, 5 cents, 10 cents and 25 cents coins will be minted at the South African Mint.

The South African Mint only wanted to mention that the coins that are being minted at SAM were designed by them in cooperation with the Central Bank of Seychelles. They did not provide a specific name of a designer.

The fact that The Royal Mint is going to produce the higher denominations is possibly because the South African Mint has no experience with the minting of a latent image on circulating coins.

[africancoins]

This google search cached result.... (the content of which could well change over time).....

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:9QR8k1f8URQJ:www.globaltenders.com/government-tenders-seychelles.php+&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Includes...

Tender Notice Type:  Procurement News   Country :  Seychelles   
Tender Category: Banking, Finance, Insurance and Securities (BFIS) , Consultancy - Financial , Services
Description:  Seychelles : The Central Bank of Seychelles will soon release a new family of banknotes and coins 
Action Deadline:     Ref. no.:  36177296 
View Tender Details:  View Details

But on the actual site - even if you have the Ref. no.: for any of this sort of thing - you would still need to be able to login to the site to see further details.

But anyway - I would have thought that the tenders may have asked for better security for one or several of the higher denominations - but without going so far to state a particular need for latent images. All mints putting in a tender could have each offered their own solution to the Bank's need for security features. For that the S.A. Mint may have offered "bi-metallic" (round ring and round core) with and their raised micro-lettering for face and/or edge. The Bank would have had to evaluate costs against usefulness of the security features offered by each mint.

Unless....  the Bank is a real big friend of the British Royal Mint.....

Both S.A. Mint and British Royal Mint have made a lot of coins for the Seychelles in the past.....

Thanks Mr Paul Baker

[malawi]

new coins into circulation today !!!

News here :

http://www.cbs.sc/Currency/newfamily.jsp

[eurocoin]

Interestingly the design of the frog on the 1 cent coin is of the exact same size as the real animal.

High quality images of the minted coins:

         

      

[<k>]

Interesting that the 10 rupees is a bimetallic heptagon. How many other bimetallic heptagon coins are there in the world?