The best currency note of the year—Oh yes! There’s an award for that as well. And, guess what? The land of silk-smooth chocolates, world-class modern art and hallucinatory landscapes, Switzerland, beat 18 competitors to win the glorious title of “Bank Note of the year”.
Beautiful, isn’t it? Presenting to you, the Swiss 50 franc hybrid note!
Well, you thought, India stood a chance? Don’t. DON’T. We didn’t even qualify for the nominations—that’s the level of creativity we share!
During the year 2016, about 120 new banknotes were released worldwide in which over half were of sufficiently new design to be eligible for nomination.
Our much-hyped hulk-green Rs 500 and the baby pink Rs 2,000 currency notes, which were born out of the demonetisation apocalypse, fell into the latter half for the competition held each year by the International Bank Note Society (IBNS) since 1961.
The humiliation was so much so that our very own Rs 2,000 currency note dived head-first into the water to come out all wilted and blanched—if getting the change wasn’t a trouble high enough?
Well, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi might be coaxing the citizen towards a cashless economy, but it’s a well-known fact that the currency notes are here to stay.
Even our island neighbour, Maldives 1000 Rufiyaa, was runner-up in a very tight voting contest. Here, Reserve Bank of India, will you take a look, please!
The IBNS has been awarding a banknote each year since over a decade, and no—India hasn’t been able to claim its title yet. Well, it’s time we get our creative head together to scale it up the artistic merit and/or innovative security features required for winning this title.
