Euro banknotes

The euro banknotes are the banknotes of the euro, the currency of the Eurozone and have been in circulation since 2002. They are issued by the National Central Banks of the Eurosystem or the European Central Bank. Denominations of the notes range from €5 to €500 and, unlike euro coins, the design is identical across the whole of the eurozone, although they are issued and printed in various member states.

History

Main article: History of the euro

The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999, although it had been a goal of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since the 1960s. After tough negotiations, particularly due to opposition from the United Kingdom, the Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating economic and monetary union by 1999 for all EU states except the UK and Denmark (even though Denmark has a fixed exchange rate policy with the euro).

In 1999 the currency was born virtually and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate. It rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded behind the rest of the EU. In 2009 the Lisbon Treaty formalised its political authority, the Euro Group, alongside the European Central Bank.

Denominations

The banknotes show the signature of the second president of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet.

There are seven different denominations of the euro banknotes, each having a distinctive colour and size. The design for each of them has a common theme of European architecture in various artistic eras. The obverse of the banknote features windows or gateways while the reverse bears different types of bridges. The architectural examples are stylised illustrations, not representations of existing monuments.

All the notes bear the EU Flag, the initials of the European Central Bank in five languages (BCE, ECB, EZB, ΕΚΤ, EKP), a map of Europe on the reverse, the name "euro" in both Latin and Greek script (EURO / ΕΥΡΩ) and the signature of the first, or second president of the ECB. The 12 stars from the EU Flag are also incorporated into every note.

The euro banknote designs were chosen from 44 proposals in a design competition, launched by The Council of the European Monetary Institute (EMI) on 12 February 1996. The winning entry, created by Robert Kalina from the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, was selected on 3 December 1996.

Specification

The euro banknotes are pure cotton fibre, which improves their durability as well as making the banknotes have a distinctive feel.

2002 Series

Image		Value	Dimensions (millimetres)	Main Colour		Design		Printer code position
Obverse	Reverse					Architecture	Century
		€5	120 × 62		Grey	Classical	< 5th	Left image edge
		€10	127 × 67		Red	Romanesque	11–12th	8 o'clock star
		€20	133 × 72		Blue	Gothic	13–14th	9 o'clock star
		€50	140 × 77		Orange	Renaissance	15–16th	Right image edge
		€100	147 × 82		Green	Baroque & Rococo	17–18th	Right of 9 o'clock star
		€200	153 × 82		Yellow	Art Nouveau	19–20th	Above 7 o'clock star
		€500	160 × 82		Purple	Modern 20th century	20–21st	9 o'clock star
These images are to scale at 0.7 pixels per millimetre. For table standards, see the banknote specification table.

The Azores, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Madeira, Martinique, Réunion, and the Canary Islands, overseas territories of the eurozone member states are under the map in separate boxes, because they use the euro. Cyprus and Malta, although they are in the eurozone since 2008, they are not shown, because they only joined the European Union in 2004 and the map does not stretch that far east, with Malta being too small to be depicted, with the minimum size for depiction being 400 km².

The first reprints of the note use Willem Duisenberg's signature, who was the first president of the European Central Bank, and has since been replaced by Jean-Claude Trichet, the second president of the ECB in 2003. The reprints of the banknote printed after 2003 use Jean-Claude Trichet's signature. On 1 November 2011, Mario Draghi assumed the presidency of the European Central Bank. His signature will eventually replace Trichet's, as Trichet's replaced Duisenberg's.

Design

Due to the great number of historic bridges, arches, and gateways throughout the European continent, all the structures represented on the notes are entirely stylised illustrations of the relevant architectural styles, merely designed to evoke the landmarks within the European Union, representing various European ages and styles. For example, the 5 euro note has a generic rendition of Classical architecture, the 10 euro note of Romanesque architecture, the 20 euro note of Gothic architecture, the 50 euro note of the Renaissance, the 100 euro note of Baroque and Rococo, the 200 euro note of Art Nouveau and the 500 euro note of Modern architecture. While the designs are supposed to be devoid of any identifiable characteristics, the initial designs by Robert Kalina were of actual bridges, including the Rialto Bridge in Venice and the Pont de Neuilly in Paris, and were subsequently rendered more generic; the final designs still bear very close similarities to their specific prototypes; thus they are not truly generic.

Changes

The euro banknotes have to bear the signature of the president of the European Central Bank. Notes printed after November 2003 show Jean Claude Trichet's signature, replacing that of the first president, Wim Duisenberg, who was the president of the European Central Bank when the first euro banknotes and coins were issued.

As of January 2012, current issues neither reflect the current European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, nor the expansion of the European Union to 27 member states (Cyprus is not depicted on current notes as the map does not extend far enough east and Malta is also missing as it does not meet the current series' minimum size for depiction). Since the European Central Bank plans to redesign the notes every seven or eight years after each issue, a second series of banknotes is already in preparation. New production and anti-counterfeiting techniques will be employed on the new notes, but the design will be of the same theme and colours identical of the current series; bridges and arches. However, they would still be recognisable as a new series. Four more abbreviations of the name of the European Central Bank will have to be included on the banknotes: the Bulgarian (ЕЦБ), Hungarian (EKB), Maltese (BĊE) and Polish (EBC). Only the Cyrillic rendering of the name "euro" (ЕВРO) will be added to the new series, since it is ECB policy that the name euro be used in all countries using Latin script.

The first denomination from the new series will be issued in January 2013. The European Central Bank will, in due time, announce when banknotes from the first series lose legal tender status.

Security features

The European Central Bank described some of the basic security features of the euro notes, allowing the general public to recognise the authenticity of their currency at a glance. However, in the interest of advanced security of the euro notes, the full list of these features is a closely guarded secret of the European Central Bank and the National Central Banks of the Eurosystem.

Still, between the official descriptions and independent discoveries made by observant users, it is thought that the euro notes have at least thirty different security features. These include:

€5 holographic band

• Holograms – The lower value notes carry a holographic band to the right of the obverse. This band contains the denomination, the euro sign, the stars of the EU flag and perforations in the shape of the euro sign. The higher value notes, there is a holographic decal containing the denomination, the obverse illustration, microprinting and perforations in the shape of the euro sign.
• Variable colour ink – It appears on the lower right-hand side corner of the reverse of the higher value notes. When observed from different angles, the colour will change from purple to olive green or brown.
• Checksum – Each note has a unique serial number. The remainder from dividing the serial number by 9 gives checksum corresponding to the initial letter indicated on the note. Using a variation of the divisibility rule shortcut, the remainder from division by 9 can easily be found by adding the constituent digits and, if the sum still does not make the remainder obvious, adding the digits of the sum. Alternatively, substituting the letter with its ASCII value makes the resulting number exactly divisible by 9. Taking the same example, Z10708476264: the ASCII code for Z is 90, so the resulting number is 9010708476264. Dividing by 9 yields a remainder of 0. Using the divisibility rule again, the result can be checked speedily since the addition of all digits gives 54; 5 + 4 = 9—so the number is divisible by 9, or 9010708476264 modulo 9 is 0.

A 50 euro note under ultraviolet light.

• EURion constellation – Euro banknotes contain a pattern known as the EURion constellation which can be used to detect their identity as banknotes to prevent copying and counterfeiting. Some photocopiers are programmed to reject images containing this pattern.
• Watermarks – There are possibly three watermarks on the euro notes. They are:
  • Standard watermark – Each denomination is printed on uniquely watermarked paper. This may be observed by holding the note up to the light.
  • Digital watermark – Like the EURion constellation, a Digimarc digital watermark is embedded in the banknotes' designs. Recent versions of image editors, such as Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro refuse to process banknotes. This system is called Counterfeit Deterrence System (CDS) and was developed by the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group.

A 5 euro note under infrared light.

• • Infrared and ultraviolet watermarks – When seen in the near infrared, the banknotes will show darker areas in different zones depending on the denomination. Ultraviolet light will make the EURion constellation show in sharper contrast, and also some fluorescent threads stand out.
• Security thread – A black magnetic thread in the centre of the note is only seen against the light. It features the denomination of the note, along with the word "euro" in the Latin alphabet and the Greek alphabet.
• Magnetic ink – Some areas of the euro notes feature magnetic ink. For example, the rightmost church window on the €20 note is magnetic, as well as the large zero above it.

Magnetic serial number on Euro banknote (recorded using CMOS-MagView)

• Microprinting – The texture lines to the bottom, like those aligned to the right of ΕΥΡΩ mark on the €5 note, consist of the sequence "EURO ΕΥΡΩ" in microprinting.
• Matted surface – The euro sign and the denomination are printed on a vertical band which is only visible when lighted at an angle of 45°. This only exists for the lower value notes.
• Bar code – When held up to the light, metallic bars can be seen to the right of the watermark. The number and width of these bars indicates the value of the note. When scanned, these bars are converted to Manchester code.

Manchester code

Note	Barcode	Manchester
€5	0110 10	100
€10	0101 10	110
€20	1010 1010	0000
€50	0110 1010	1000
€100	0101 1010	1100
€200	0101 0110	1110
€500	0101 0101	1111

(looked at from the reverse, a dark bar is 1, a bright bar 0)

Features for people with impaired sight

The design of euro banknotes include several characteristics suggested in co-operation with organisations representing blind people. These characteristics aid both people who are visually impaired (people who can see the banknotes, but cannot necessarily read the printing on them) and those who are entirely blind.

Euro banknotes increase in size with increasing denominations, which helps both the visually impaired and the blind. The predominant colouring of the notes srikes against the adjacent denominations, making it still harder to confuse two similar denominations for those who can see the colour. The printing of the denominations is intaglio printing, which allows the ink to be felt by sensitive fingers, allowing some people to distinguish the printed denominations by touch alone. The lower denominations have smooth bands along one side of the note containing holograms; higher denominations have smooth, square patches with holograms. Finally, the €200 and €500 notes have distinctive tactile patterns along the edges of the notes: the €200 note has vertical lines running from the bottom centre to the right-hand corner, and the €500 note has diagonal lines running down the right-hand edge.

Circulation

The European Central Bank is closely monitoring the circulation and stock of the euro coins and banknotes. It is a task of the Eurosystem to ensure an efficient and smooth supply of euro notes and to maintain their integrity throughout the eurozone.

Statistics

As of December 2011, there are approximately 14,947,640,000 banknotes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €888,629,021,100 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011). As of December 2011, there are:

• Approximately 1,545,677,400 €5 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €7,728,386,800 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 2,072,931,600 €10 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €20,729,316,400 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 2,853,452,300 €20 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €57,069,046,900 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 6,045,145,700 €50 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That makes it the most used banknote of the Eurozone. That is approximately €302,257,286,600 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 1,649,945,600 €100 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €164,994,559,100 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 181,310,800 €200 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That makes it the least used banknote of the Eurozone. That is approximately €36,262,162,200 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).
• Approximately 599,176,500 €500 notes in circulation around the Eurozone. That is approximately €299,588,263,000 worth of banknotes (as of December 2011).

Counterfeiting

There has been a rapid growth in the counterfeiting of euro banknotes since the launch of the currency in 2002.

In 2003, 551,287 counterfeit euro notes were removed from circulation. In 2004, French police seized fake €10 and €20 notes with a total face value of around €1.8 million from two laboratories and estimated that 145,000 notes had already entered circulation. Each year between 2003 and 2007 between 500,000 and 600,000 counterfeit notes were removed from circulation, although this is a very small portion of the 12 billion notes in circulation.

The European Central Bank, in July 2008, said that the amount of fake euro banknotes was on the rise, with the amount seized jumping more than 15% in the first six months of 2008. The ECB said most were bogus €50 and €20 notes, although high quality €200 and €500 notes are also being made.

Issuance and printing

The ECB has the exclusive right to authorise the issue of notes within the Eurozone, but most notes are actually issued by the National Central Banks (NCBs) of the Eurozone. As of 2004, 8% of banknotes were issued by the European Central Bank and 92% were issued by Eurozone NCBs. The issuing central bank can be seen from the serial number. Each NCB is now responsible for the production of certain denominations, as assigned by the ECB.

Printing works

On every banknote there is a six-character printing code which states the printer of the banknote. These printing codes have an initial letter, followed by three digits, then by a single letter, and ending in a digit, for example, "G013B6".

The initial letter identifies the printing facility. (the facilities are described below) "G" for example would be Enschede & Sons, a printer in the Netherlands. The three digits state sequential printing plates. "013", for example, would be the 13th printing plate created by the printer. The fifth character, a letter and sixth character, a number, represent the row and column, respectively, of the particular banknote on the particular plate. So "B" would be the second row and "6" would indicate the sixth column.

Banknotes are printed in sheets. Different printers use different sheet sizes and sheets of higher denominations, which are larger in size, would have fewer notes printed per sheet. For example, two German printers print €5 banknotes in sheets of 60 (10 rows, designated "A" to "J" and six columns), the sheets of €10 notes have 54 banknotes (nine rows, six columns), and €20 banknotes are printed in sheets of 45 banknotes (nine rows, five columns).

The printer code does not need to be the same as the country code, i.e. notes issued by a particular country may have been printed in another country. The printers used to print euro banknotes include commercial printers as well as national printers, some of which have been privatised, some previously produced national notes before the adoption of the euro. There is one former or current national printer in each of the countries which issue euro notes, with the exception of Germany, where the former East German and West German printers now produce euro notes. There are also two printers identified in France, F. C. Oberthur, a private printer, and the Bank of France printing works, and also two in the United Kingdom: Thomas De La Rue, a major private printer, and the Bank of England printing house, which currently does not produce euro banknotes.

Printer identification codes

Code	Printer	Location	Country	NCB(s) produced for
(A)	(Bank of England Printing Works)	(Loughton)	(United Kingdom)	—
(B)	Not Used	—	—	—
(C)	(Tumba Bruk)	(Tumba)	(Sweden)	—
D	Setec Oy	Vantaa	Finland	L (Finland)
E	F. C. Oberthur	Chantepie	France	H (Slovenia), L (Finland), P (Netherlands), U (France), E (Slovakia), G (Cyprus)
F	Österreichische Banknoten und Sicherheitsdruck	Vienna	Austria	N (Austria), P (Netherlands), S (Italy), T (Ireland), Y (Greece)
G	Koninklijke Joh. Enschedé	Haarlem	Netherlands	E (Slovakia), F (Malta), G (Cyprus), L (Finland), N (Austria), P (Netherlands), V (Spain), Y (Greece)
H	De La Rue	Gateshead	United Kingdom	L (Finland), M (Portugal), P (Netherlands), T (Ireland)
(I)	Not Used	—	—	—
J	Banca d'Italia	Rome	Italy	S (Italy)
K	Banc Ceannais na hÉireann / Central Bank of Ireland	Dublin	Ireland	T (Ireland)
L	Banque de France	Chamalières	France	U (France)
M	Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre	Madrid	Spain	V (Spain)
N	Bank of Greece	Athens	Greece	Y (Greece)
(O)	Not Used	—	—	—
P	Giesecke & Devrient	Munich & Leipzig	Germany	L (Finland), M (Portugal), P (Netherlands), U (France), V (Spain), X (Germany), Y (Greece)
(Q)	Not Used	—	—	—
R	Bundesdruckerei	Berlin	Germany	P (Netherlands), X (Germany), Y (Greece)
(S)	(Danmarks Nationalbank)	(Copenhagen)	(Denmark)	—
T	National Bank of Belgium	Brussels	Belgium	U (France), V (Spain), Z (Belgium)
U	Valora—Banco de Portugal	Carregado	Portugal	M (Portugal)

• The A, C and S codes have been reserved for the English, Swedish and Danish printers currently not printing euro banknotes.
• Where a printer is listed as producing banknotes for a particular country, this may apply to a single denomination, or as many as all seven denominations. Some NCBs source different denominations from different printers (Greece sourcing from five different printers), and some source even a single denomination from multiple printers (the Netherlands has sourced the €5 note from five different printers up to March 2009). NCBs that issue banknotes are free to source from any authorized printers, and do so in varying quantities. As of June 2008, there are a total of 133 known printer/signature/country/denomination combinations of euro banknotes.

Serial number

Unlike euro coins, euro notes do not have a national side indicating which country issued them (which is not necessarily where they were printed). This information is instead encoded within the first character of each note's serial number.

The first character of the serial number is a letter which uniquely identifies the country that issues the note. The remaining 11 characters are numbers which, when calculated their digital root, give a checksum also particular to that country. Because of the arithmetic of the check-sum, consecutively issued banknotes are not numbered sequentially, but rather, "consecutive" banknotes are 9 digits apart.

The W, K and J codes have been reserved for the EU member states currently not participating in the euro, while the R prefix is reserved for a state within the Eurozone that, at present, does not issue euro banknotes.

Country codes are alphabetised according to the countries' names in the official language of each country, but reversed:^{[citation needed]}

National identification codes

Code	Country		Checksum(1)
	in English	in official language(s)
Z	Belgium	België/Belgique/Belgien	9
Y	Greece	Ελλάδα [Ellada]	1
X	Germany	Deutschland	2
(W)(2)	(Denmark)	Danmark	(3)
V	Spain	España/Espanya/Espanha	4
U	France	France	5
T	Ireland	Éire/Ireland	6
S	Italy	Italia	7
(R)	(Luxembourg)	Luxembourg/Luxemburg/Lëtzebuerg	(8)
(Q)	Not used
P	Netherlands	Nederland	1
(O)	Not used
N	Austria	Österreich	3
M	Portugal	Portugal	4
L	Finland	Suomi/Finland	5
(K)(2)	(Sweden)	Sverige	(6)
(J)(2)	(United Kingdom)	United Kingdom	(7)
(I)	Not used
H	Slovenia	Slovenija	9
G	Cyprus	Κύπρος [Kypros]/Kıbrıs	1
F	Malta	Malta	2
E	Slovakia	Slovensko	3
D	Estonia	Eesti	4
C
B
A

⁽¹⁾ checksum of the 11 digits without the letter
⁽²⁾ Denmark, the United Kingdom and Sweden presently do not use the Euro, but still have these serial number prefixes reserved.

• The positions of Denmark and Greece have been swapped in the list of letters starting the serial numbers, presumably because Υ (upsilon) is a letter of the Greek alphabet, while W is not.
• In the case of Finland, which has two official languages that are also official EU languages (Finnish and Swedish), the order was based on the Finnish Suomi instead of the Swedish Finland, presumably because Finnish is the majority language in the country.
• Belgium has three official languages, all of which are official EU languages. Luxembourg also has three official languages, with two being official EU languages. However, in these cases, the countries' positions in the list would be the same no matter which language was used.

The notes of Luxembourg currently use the prefix belonging to the country where they were printed.

Although the Slovenian letter had been reserved since the eurozone enlargement in January 2007, the country initially used previously issued banknotes issued from other member states. The first banknotes bearing the "H" letter, produced in France specifically on behalf of Slovenia, were witnessed no sooner than April 2008. The 'Cypriot banknotes' (G) appeared in circulation in November 2009, whereas, those from Malta (F) appeared 3 months later (February 2010). Slovakian notes (E) first appeared in October 2010.

It seems^{[citation needed]} from that further country codes are assigned in reverse order from the last assigned code "J" for the UK, according to the time a country joins the Eurozone. When two or more countries join at the same time, the same rule is followed as with the initial assignments of country codes, i.e. the country codes are alphabetised according to the countries' names in the official language of each country, but reversed. "H" was assigned to Slovenia which joined the Eurozone in 2007 following "J" which was the last letter assigned so far, to the UK. Then when Cyprus and Malta joined in 2008, "G" was assigned to Cyprus (Κύπρος [Kypros] in Greek, Kıbrıs in Turkish, the island's two official languages both starting with the letter K), "F" was assigned to Malta and "E" was assigned for Slovakia. The latest eurozone member, Estonia, was assigned the letter "D". No banknote so far uses the Estonian identification code, since Estonia borrowed its banknotes from Finland and Germany.

It has been suggested^{[citation needed]} that, should the prefixes change to two characters, the code should be the state's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code (e.g., EE for Estonia, DE for Germany, IT for Italy).

The initial design of the euro with the 2002 signature of Wim Duisenberg, has been issued in each of the 7 denominations by each of the NCBs of Finland, Portugal, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, Greece and Belgium, with the exception of the €200 and €500 banknotes from Portugal and the €200 banknote from Ireland. Thus, there are 74 country/denomination varieties of the banknotes with the Duisenberg signature.

After the initial introduction of the euro by these eleven NCBs, in 2002, each NCB was tasked with issuing only a subset of the denominations; for example, only 4 NCBs continued to issue the €50 note for several years thereafter. This decentralised pooling scheme means that the NCBs have to exchange the denominations issued in different countries prior to issue, and often source the banknotes they issue from multiple printers. This also means that some country/signature combinations are much scarcer than others; specifically the Duisenberg signatures of the €200 note from Finland, the €100 note from Portugal, €100 and €500 notes from Ireland and €200 and €500 notes from Greece. Also, the banknotes issued subsequent to 2003, carrying the signature of J.C. Trichet are not found in every denomination from every country. As of the end of 2007, only 30 of the 77 possible combinations of banknotes with the Trichet signature were known, but additional combinations continue to be released, along with incremental banknotes issued in 2008 by the NCB of Slovenia, carrying the serial prefix letter "H." And later also notes for Cyprus (G), Malta (F) and Slovakia (E) were issued.

€1 and €2 notes

Italy, Greece, Austria and Slovenia have asked several times to introduce lower denominations of euro notes. The ECB has stated that "printing a €1 note is more expensive (and less durable) than minting a €1 coin". On 18 November 2004 the ECB decided definitively that there was insufficient demand across the Eurozone for very-low-denomination banknotes. On 25 October 2005, however, more than half of the MEPs supported a motion calling on the European Commission and the European Central Bank to recognise the definite need for the introduction of €1 and €2 banknotes. However the European Central Bank is not directly answerable to the Parliament or the Commission, and has ignored the motion.

See also

• Currency note tracking
• EuroBillTracker
• Euro
• History of the euro

External links

• Security features on euro banknotes (ECB)
• RFID technology on euro banknotes
• Euro banknote design exhibition – entries for the 1996 banknote design competition (PDF)