Bangko Sentral to release new P100 bill

Consumers can start using the new P100 bills on Monday (February 1), when it enters circulation.

The new bills have a stronger mauve or violet color than the current P100 bills.

“This is in response to suggestions from the public to make it easier to distinguish from the 1000-Piso banknote,” the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said in a news release.

All the other features of the P100 bill were retained.

The BSP clarified that the P100 bills currently in circulation can still be used for daily transactions as payment for goods and services until supplies last.

Only the old banknote series that will be demonetized on January 2017

Read more here

Need to get rid of any old series notes, still changeable at banks before the end of 2016.

I might have a few of those lying around in the UK.

Can't see any difference!

I'm not surprised the public have been complaining. The designs of the new series were a total disaster. 100s do look too much like 1000s, but that doesn't matter all that much, because hardly any Filipinos even see a 1000 bill from one week to the next, and so are not likely to make a mistake. More importantly, they didn't change the colour scheme that made 20s and 50s look too similar. They should have changed that, and made one of them yellow or something, as those are the two bills that get confused the most often. And then they made it not better, but worse, because the new 500 bill they introduced - which had previously been a distinctive bill that you would never confuse with another one - looks too much a 20 or even 50 now too. Having a phone that has a flashlight in the Philippines doesn't just come in handy when there's a brownout. They are also useful when you want to correctly identify bills somewhere at night where there's poor lighting. In fact these days, knowing that 500s can now easily be confused with 20s and 50s, I take care to keep them in a seperate pocket, like I have always done with 1000s. I never used to do that with the old 500 design as there wasn't even the slightest chance of confusing it with another bill.

A completely over-the-top exaggeration.

OK 'hardly any' is an exaggeration. 'Many', would not be. The big problem with the new series of bills is not the similarity between the 100s and 1000s, but that they failed to address the obvious over-similarity between 20s and 50s which people use many times more often than they do 100s, never mind 1000s. And then they made it even worse by introducing a new 500 bill that also looks too similar to 20s and 50s. Filipinos also miss the old 500 bill. It was popular. They liked the picture.

Too late for the old series peso notes, need to find an "authorised bank" (??):

Link to article...​

So what am I to do with it all now?? I`m not joking!

Nobody in my family has any problem at all in telling the difference between P20, P50 and P500 notes which are, if anything, clearer and more distinctive than before. Please don't project your own shortcomings onto the Philippine population as you do them an injustice.

Personally I've never once made any error is selecting the correct bills.
It's very rare for me to come by any of those old notes.

When you look at the new designs they each have a large number on the front denoting the value.
That should make it very easy for everyone

Thank you for posting that graphic, Peter, which clearly shows the distinctive colours of the newer P20 and P50 notes. It is the old series P20 and P50 that people could have problems with as their colouration was very similar.

Do you find any of the 'old' notes in your day-to-day happenings ?
I can remember having an old P50 one time as it caught my attention. I got rid of pretty quickly

Not for a good while: there's a branch of the BSP here in Davao and they withdrew the old series notes fairly quickly following the introduction of the current series in 2010. Never came across a P5 or P10 note either here, Cebu or Manila, however.

Visibility and lighting can be so poor in the Philippines, that having three same-sized bills that are so similar in colour is a very bad idea. The colouration of the 20s and 50s has changed but not by much and just look at the old 500 bill. It's a very distinctive bill that before, could not possibly be confused with another one. But the new 500 looks far too much like the 20 and even too much like the 50 when it has the same two numerals written on it. To be fair US currency is even worse. Not only are all the bills the same size, but they are all the same colour. Whereas British currency is excellent from this point of view. You can tell the notes apart in a blindfold test like you can coins, which you wouldn't be able to do with Filipino and US money. Colouration is quite important but what is more important to make sure mishaps are less likely to occur is to make the bills in different sizes - like pounds, euros, Aussie dollars and Japanese yen are in different sizes.

If you can't tell the difference between P20, P50 and P500 bills, then maybe you need a (new) pair of spectacles. The P500 bill has a wide silver "thread" woven-in which makes it distinctive even if you're unable to discern the Peso value.

The bills are what they are and no Filipino I know has been unable to distinguish between the various denominations.

I spoken with several Filipinos that do have problems even ones part of who's job it is to count the takings in shops they have. The colourisation is an issue of course - that there have been complaints from the public is what this topic and the article linked, is about. But although the colourisation on Filipino money is a bit slack in a country where millions of people live in a kind of half-light, the biggest issue is that the banknotes are also all the same size, when with almost all other currencies, they take the trouble to make sure that the banknotes are all of differing dimensions.