Imperfect polymer VND10,000 bank notes still valid
 

VietNamNet Bridge

By Phuoc Ha

October 2006

The State Bank of Vietnam has admitted to an error with the VND10,000 polymer bank note. However, it has said that the flawed bank notes would still be put into circulation.

Local newspapers some days ago discovered an error with the newly issued VND10,000 bank note. There is no numerical dot after the first zero in ‘10000’ to indicate ‘thousands’ in the Vietnamese style (it should be ’10.000’).

The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) has admitted its error. Tran Tien, Former Head of the Design Division, who was in charge of bank note designs, said that the mistake was made during the desktop publishing phase.

However, SBV’s Head of the Vault and Issuance Department Nguyen Van Toan said that the newly issued bank notes would still be circulated. He added that the error did not affect security factors, the form and the value of the bank note.

It is not imperative to have a dot among the numerals. Cotton bank notes, which are being circulated concurrently with polymer bank notes, do not have numerical dots, nor do other currencies in the world.

Mr Toan said that two versions of the polymer VND10,000 bank note existing concurrently would cause problems. In addition, withdrawing the currency would cost the bank a lot of money.