CAPE TOWN - The South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) will be launching its first commemorative banknote series, in celebration of the first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela’s centenary.
Sarb today released a statement saying that the banknote series will cover all denominations which include the R10, R20, R50, R100 and R200 notes.
As part of the centenary celebration, Sarb said that the South African Mint, a subsidiary of the Sarb will also be issuing a new commemorative circulation R5 coin.
“As part of the preparations for the launch, test packs of the commemorative banknotes were made available to members of the broader cash industry to allow them to make adequate preparations in relation to issues such as adaptions of cash processing and cash dispensing machines, ticketing machines and so forth”, said Sarb.
However, although the test packs were governed, certain breaches occurred. Therefore, Sarb decided to release all the designs ahead of the official launch on July 13 2018 in order to avoid confusion and unnecessary speculation.
“It is envisaged that these notes will be issued into circulation by 18 July 2018. These commemorative banknotes and R5 coin will co-circulate for a limited time, together with the current Mandela banknote series and the existing R5 coin, and both sets will remain legal tender”, said Sarb.