The Reserve Bank of India has had a tough 12 months as the worlds 11th largest economy has had its currency weaken by 12% hitting new high never seen before. The export economy is driven by India trading with America and Europe and the dramatic weakening of the currency has had a major impact on the economy. A new initiative by the RBI aims to educate the general public about a differentiating against counterfeit currency notes.
This new plague in the world of FX costs the economy millions of USD per year as the streets of India are filled with illegal money.
The INR is currently trading at 85.83against British Pound Sterling and 68.07 against the Euro.
Seeking to spread awareness among the public about fake notes, the Reserve Bank of India has launched a website explaining ways to detect counterfeit notes. With a tagline ‘Pehchano Paise Ki Boli, Kyunki Paisa Bolta Hai’ translated ‘Recognise the language of money, because money talks‘ as the website www.paisaboltahai.rbi.org.in.
The site gives visual presentation with pointers on currency notes of 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000 rupee denominations. Consumers have the option to download posters of these currency notes, which can be used as reference to identify counterfeit notes.
A documentary film on it can also be downloaded. RBI said considering there were 64,577 million pieces of banknotes in circulation as on March 31, 2011, the detection of forged notes during 2010-11 was to the tune of 6.74 pieces per million pieces of banknotes in circulation. In the past as well, the Reserve Bank has come out with various notifications warning against circulation of counterfeit currency notes. Referring to the fake currency notes in circulation, RBI Governor D Subbarao said in Kozhikode on Friday that the government and police are taking several measures to deal with the menace.
The RBI’s worry doesn’t stop here, with a rise in margin FX related crimes and complaints the RBI has been clamping down on foreign Forex brokers offering spot FX to Indian residents.
Does Indian locals accept some of the other major currencies such as USD/EUR/AUD in their day to day transactions? Or does everything have to be converted into rupee first?