(Business in Cameroon) - The Bank of Central African States Beac put yesterday December 15 new banknotes “type 2020” into circulation within the Cemac region. The new range includes notes of CFA500, CFA2,000, CFA5,000, and CFA10,000.

According to official information, the Central Bank seeks, through this approach, to “be one step ahead of counterfeiters with more secure notes that are difficult to forge,” explains Emmanuel Asafor Sho, the first BEAC deputy national director in Cameroon. This was during a press conference held on December 14, 2022, in Yaoundé.

"Bank cashiers and public accountants have been trained in the authentication of the 2020 range banknotes. They will be able to proceed, as of December 15, 2022, to the collection of these notes at all the Beac's counters. (...) The general public will therefore be allowed, following the withdrawal of banknotes by banks and public accountants at Beac counters on December 15, 2022, to receive these new banknotes at bank and public accountant counters, and in ATMs. (...) I, therefore, invite the public to make good use of these notes (...), by accepting them in transactions of any kind," the official said.

Speaking on November 22, 2022, in Ndjamena, the Chadian capital, on the sidelines of the Beac's fiftieth anniversary, the Beac Governor, Chadian Abbas Mahamat Tolli, presented this new range of banknotes as being "more compact, more modern and better secured". Equipped with numerous security features (nine to eleven in total, depending on the note, ed) sometimes invisible to the naked eye, these new notes have the particularity of being recognizable by the visually impaired, thanks to tactile lines, we learn officially. These lines, which can be felt when touched, vary from one to five, depending on the note.

Despite the introduction of new banknotes, central bank officials say that the 2002 range banknotes continue to be in use in CEMAC. According to a resolution taken by the Ministerial Committee of the Central African Monetary Union (Umac), meeting by videoconference on November 7, 2022, these 2002 series notes will be "progressively" withdrawn from circulation as they are returned to Beac counters," starting January 1, 2024. But the date of their complete demonetization is not yet known, and could even be at least a decade away. For example, the demonetization of the 1992 series is only scheduled for June 2024, 32 years after its introduction.

Brice R. Mbodiam