The first set of currency notes under the new series was ceremonially issued to H.E. the President Mahinda Rajapaksa at the Deyata Kirula Exhibition in Buttala on 2011 February 4th by the Governor of the Central Bank Mr. Ajith Nivard Cabraal. They were not issued to public at the exhibition site as announced. The new notes were issued to the public through CBSL cash counter and CBSL Museum at Rajagiriya from Monday, 2011 February 7th.
For details of Replacement Notes with images for series see in *-Notes
| | Gold | 153x67 mm | Rs5000 note |
| | Green | 148x67 mm | Rs1000 note |
| | Purple | 143x67 mm | Rs 500 note |
| | Orange | 138x67 mm | Rs 100 note |
| | Blue | 133x67 mm | Rs 50 note |
| | Maroon | 128x67 mm | Rs 20 note |
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The landscape front of the note was designed by Artist Mr Kelum Gunasekara has in the center a new economic development with an older example in the background. It also has on each an endemic Bird of Sri Lanka on the right and a Butterfly on the lower left.
The portrait back of the notes designed by Artist Sisira Liyanaarachchi have different pair of a traditional Sri Lankan drummer and a dancer. A guard stone appears on the upper right on a vertical band with floral design. A map of Sri Lanka appears in the background centered to the left of this band.
The new series consists of six denominations i.e. Rs. 5,000, Rs. 1,000, Rs. 500, Rs. 100, Rs. 50 and Rs. 20. The high value Rs. 5000 note is being introduced to facilitate expansion in transactions that has taken place with the growth of the economy.
The main difference between the existing series and the new series is the size of the notes. The height of all notes in the new series is the same for all denominations, while the length increases by 5 mm from the lowest denomination to the highest. The notes contain several current and new advanced Security features and UV printing.
Since the Pictorial issue of George the VI issued in 1941 the watermark was a Lion on all notes except the wartime fractional notes below Rs1. Originally it was the lion from the Ratnapura Flag, standing on hind legs holding a whip, After 1985 when the Ceylon in the Name of the Central Bank was changed to Sri Lanka, it was the Standing Lion of the National Flag. CBSL has now broken with tradition and removed the lion watermark and these are the first notes after 1951 that we don't have the Lankan lion as a watermark. The image of the bird on each note has been used as the watermark for that note in this series. Since the watermark in general repesents the Authority of issue, the removal of the lion symbol is inappropriate. An observant trishaw driver commented on the new notes saying the nation's lion has been replaced by an owl.
The CBSL met the requests of collectors and for the first time issued sets of six notes with matching serial numbers in a colourful folder with a slip case. The price of Rs.7,500 included an extra Rs. 830 for the folder. The text is only in English. Individual folders are also available for each denomination where the text is in all three languages, Sinhala, Tamil and English. Costing from Rs. 150 to Rs 5,500, depending on the denomination, the full set of six individual folders cost Rs.8100. Only a 1000 of each has been made as Limited collectors' items.
The folder with all six notes seems to be more popular and had serial numbers in the 5000's. The six individual folders had serial numbers in the 6000's and I was lucky to get a set of them with the same serial number. Buying the folders has the additional advantage of getting low serial numbers which hold a numismatic premium.
CBSL has also issued an uncut sheet of 40 Rs100 notes.
All of the new currency products have been put on sale at the CBSL online shop Collectors abroad can order directly from CBSL and pay with Credit Card. For example, the US$67 price of full set of 6 with Album is just 12.5% over Face value and lot cheaper than on eBay
Export and Import of Foreign & Sri Lanka Currency is dealt with Government Gazette Notification dated September 27, 2007 bearing No.1516/24 The limit of Sri Lankan currency that is allowed to be taken abroad is Rs5000. According to CBSL you need exchange control permission to take or post a full set of New Currency notes abroad with or without folder. This is another reason to order what you need from abroad via the CBSL online store. All sellers marketing them on eBay, ignoring these Laws.
See edited version of my Article on these Currency from CBSL, in the SundayTimes of 2011 February 13th as Taking note of new notes. It was reproduced for the International readership in the E-Sylum on the same day.
After 10 years CBSL is nolonger issuing the old notes and but there has been no order to Banks to return what old notes they get to CBSL for withdrawal from circulation, as they do for notes issued before 1991. This implies that the old notes will circulate for few more years, till they all ware out and removed from circulation. The two sizes will be a confusion for a long time.
ATMs after they are programmed to switch over to new notes, will not be able to dispense old notes, and so this will not happen for some time till CBSL issues mostly new notes to Banks. The currency counting machines in Banks can only handle one size at a time, and so the new notes will need to be counted separately from the old.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) was selected as a finalist from among 17 nominations for the Best New Banknote Series award at the International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) Conference held in Singapore from 2011 October 2-5th, and Won Finalist Award.
See also DeLaRue's 4 minute promotional video of project starting 2007 August. However notes were not all that accepted by public as claimed, as it is hard to tell apart in low light, since all the currency notes had the same height and had a picture of a bird. When you could not see the color of the note, it was difficult to tell apart. The 1991-2006 Series had a totally different picture and could be identified in the in low light.
The Annual report for 2014 Part02 Sec 5.2(a) states Several improvements were made to the quality of currency notes by increasing the thickness of currency paper and introducing a coating of varnish for low denominations of currency notes to enhance the durability of the Notes.. Denominations Rs 20, 50 and 100 with No change in date.
A total of Rs403.6 Billion Rupees was printed in the 48 months since issue on 2011-02-04 to the Next date 2015-02-04. About Rs8 Billion a month on average.
Since early 2017, DeLaRue printing for CBSL introduced Single Note Inspection Machine ( SNIM) when each banknote was imaged and inspected by computer software, keeping a record of serial numbers of all accepted Banknotes and rejecting damaged banknotes automatically and not replacing them. See advantage of SNIM.
| Date on Note | Error Percent | Total Printed M |
| 2016-07-04 | 6.87 | 130.00 |
| 2017-05-22 | 9.72 | 294.80 |
| 2019-01-28 | 10.30 | 175.20 |
| 2019-12-24 | 8.14 | 160.00 |
| 2020-08-12 | 9.83 | 185.70 |
| 2021-09-15 | 4.53 | 264.05 |
| 2022-07-04 | 6.08 | 235.00 |
| Total | 7.83 | 1444.75 |
Bricks of 1000 new notes have missing serial numbers which are not replaced by Replacement notes. What was most confusing was that SNIM rejected about 10% of the banknotes, up from 0.2-0.3% Replacements used with manual inspection and removal of damaged notes with the inclusion of replacement notes. i.e. from 2 or 3 notes per 1000 for Manual to 80 notes per 1000 with SNIM printing the same type of Banknotes in the same facility. The increase was explained by more stringent quality control, but mainly because after the adoption of SNIM, printed sheets are not quality checked before printing serials.
The percentage of notes rejected as error from a high of 10.3% in 2019-01-28 has reduced to 4.53% in 2021-09-15. On average it is not a function of denomination, averaging about 7.8% for all 1.4 Billion notes printed and checked by SNIM.
I wrote an article to the SundayTimes on 2020 June 21 Central Bank printing new money discussing this increase and the Security Committee and the Monetory Board got the CBSL to do an Internal Audit to ensure that Serial numbers of all the notes returning to CBSL from circulation where listed in database of accepted serial numbers provided by DeLaRue. I asked for information on the results of this Internal Audit and what was been done to ensure the security of Sri Lanka currency against this kind of possible Fraud. by CBSL RTI 0002/2022. The request was rejected with reply The disclosure of such information would cause grave prejudice to the prevention or detection of any crime or the apprehension or prosecution of offenders or expose the identity of a confidential source of information in relation to law enforcement or national security, to be ascertained
According to
CBSL Road Map 2020 and beyond
Marking its 70th anniversary, the Central Bank is planning to issue
a commemorative coin of Rs. 20 and a new currency note of Rs. 2,000
under the existing 11th note series in 2020. Security features will
also be further upgraded in the existing 11th currency notes series.
New Rs2000 is not a commemorative.
New Series in 2021 mentioned in 2019 Roadmap has been scrapped.
New signatures Ravi Karunanayake & A. Mahendran dated 2015-02-04
New signatures Ravi Karunanayake & I. Coomaraswamy dated 2016-07-04
New signatures Mangala Samaraweera & I. Coomaraswamy dated 2017-05-22 & 2019-01-28
New signatures Mahinda Rajapaksa & W. D. Lakshman dated 2019-12-24 & 2020-08-12
New signatures Basil Rajapaksa & Ajith Nivard Cabraal dated 2021-09-15
New signatures Ranil Wickremasinghe & Nandalal Weerasinghe dated 2022-07-04
According to reply to my CBSL RTI 0091/2021 there were no banknotes printed with signatures of Basil Rajapaksa and Governor W. D. Laksman before his resignation on 2021-09-14
Below is the average cost of printing Sri Lanka banknotes at DeLaRue. from 2016-2023. CBSL Finantial Statement §52 has a line Item in its on called Cost of Printing currency notes, for the year ending 31st Dec in ACCOUNTS AND OPERATIONS OF THE CENTRAL BANK OF SRI LANKA (Sec 18 Part 02)
| Year | Cost of Printing K (,000) | Notes Printed M | Mean Cost per note LK-Rs |
| 2023 | 2,603,776 | 235 | 11.08 |
| 2022 | 1,856,465 | 264 | 7.03 |
| 2021 | 1,086,655 | 186 | 5.85 |
| 2020 | 1,195,295 | 160 | 7.47 |
| 2019 | 1,459,560 | 175 | 8.33 |
| 2018 | 1,605,463 | 294 | 5.46 |
| 2017 | 1,906,625 | 290 | 6.57 |
| 2016 | 3,162,625 | 433 | 7.30 |
| Total | 14,875,396 | 2037 | 7.03 |
Text edited from CBSL
Press Release
and Information notice.
Images in full page color
advertisements
published in local newspapers.
11th Currency Note Series of Sri Lanka
leaflet
The notes scanned at 300 dpi and displayed above at 25 dpi
See also
