‘It Still Smells Of Paint’: Minsk Citizens Withdrew New Banknotes With Consecutive Numbers From ATM

Did the printing press work?

A Minsk citizen withdrew a large amount of money from an ATM and was surprised: the bills looked brand new, and even with consecutive numbers.

“I withdrew it from the ATM. It still smells of paint," a reader wrote to zerkalo.io and showed a photo of seventeen new hundred-ruble banknotes with consecutive serial numbers.

Journalists, as individuals, called one of the cash desks of the National Bank. They explained that on July 1 of this year, the National Bank issued new banknotes, and stated that “you should not worry” because they are slightly different from those issued, for example, in 2016.

"It is because they loaded the ATM with new banknotes." Since July 1, the design has changed a little, but if you don't compare, you won't notice anything. Don't worry, everything is fine. You were just lucky that the ATM gave you new banknotes," the branch worker reassured.

Indeed, on July 1, the National Bank announced the issuance of new hundred-ruble banknotes. They have slightly changed the design and degree of protection against counterfeiting. In particular, the props 'Starshynia Praulennia' (Chairman of the Board) and a facsimile of the National Bank Ex-Chairman of the Board Piotr Prakapovich signature were removed. Also, they replaced the banknote sample '2009' with '2022'.

If you look at the statistics of the National Bank, it follows that since the beginning of the year, the volume of cash in circulation has increased by 1.1 billion rubles (by 23.7%). By comparison, for the same period last year, it was only 193 million rubles.

At the same time, in the first half of the year, the growth of the ruble monetary supply amounted to 1.7 billion rubles (or 6.7%). This was noticed higher than in the same period of 2021, when the increase was 880 million rubles.