SBP says banknotes added with Braille features

KARACHI: All currency notes of Rs20 and above contain Braille features on the front to determine the denomination of the currency notes, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday.

The SBP said it had noticed that visually impaired persons found it difficult to recognise and distinguish amongst different Pakistani currency notes.

SBP, for the information of the general public and specifically visually impaired persons, reiterated that Pakistani currency notes have specific features to help the visually impaired to identify the genuineness of currency notes and to distinguish between different denominations.

“For this purpose, raised dots and small horizontal lines are printed on the left bottom corner just above the banknote serial number,” the central bank said.

This feature makes banknote denominations easily distinguishable by rubbing the thumb against these raised features, it added.

Braille in each denomination appears in this manner: Rs20 has one line, Rs50 two lines, and Rs100 has three lines, while other higher denomination notes have dots as Braille feature.

Specifically, Rs500 has one dot; Rs1,000 two dots, and Rs5,000 three dots.

All Braille features on currency notes of all denominations of Rs20 and above were printed through Intaglio process, due to which they appear raised and on the front side of the note only.

“Thus, a visually impaired person can easily infer the denomination of the banknotes by feeling the raised printing as well as its genuineness,” the SBP said.

The central bank said that all Pakistani currency notes have denomination-wise tiered sizing. Each currency note has the same width of 65 mm whereas lengthwise, each banknote is exactly 08mm longer than the preceding denomination.

Thus, the highest denomination banknote of Rs5,000 was 48mm longer than the lowest denomination currency note of Rs10.

The incorporation of a number of strong security features, including Braille in banknotes were aimed at facilitating the general public.

The SBP said that its 16 field offices of SBP-BSC spread across Pakistan, conduct awareness campaigns all over the country for this purpose.

The SBP BSC field offices were also arranging special awareness sessions tailored towards the needs of visually impaired persons.