The note had been shown off by the Bank of Portugal on Monday and was released into circulation two days later.
The new version of the €20 note will be a more colourful and decorative version, featuring a hologram portrait-window with the picture of a mythological European figure, and it also changes colour depending on the viewing angle, from emerald-green to dark blue.It “contains security features present in the new €5 and €10 notes already in circulation along with an innovative security feature: a window with a holographic band. This results from years of research and a technological breakthrough in the note production industry,” said Bank specialist Mónica Fernandes, adding that such would “safeguard the integrity of euronotes.”
The specialist said that the new note was the “most sophisticated and with the greatest resistance to counterfeiting” as “appropriate to the note that circulated in the greatest numbers.”
Nevertheless, Fernandes said the notes in existence had more than served to minimise the extent of counterfeit notes in circulation.
“In the first half of this year, at the level of the Euro-system, a total of 454,000 notes were taken out of circulation and that compares with the over 17 billion notes in circulation and is a truly very low level,” said the Bank of Portugal representative.
Ahead of its launch, around 4.3 billion new €20 notes were printed to serve the Euro Zone and beyond, some 44 million of which were produced at the Bank of Portugal Carregado mint.
Fernandes also made a point of stating that the new €20 notes did not imply that the old notes were in any way going out of circulation and would remain legal tender for the foreseeable future.
The new €20 banknote was first unveiled in February at the European Central Bank’s (ECB) headquarters in Frankfurt.
It is the third in the Europa series that is gradually replacing the original series of euro banknotes introduced in 2002.
The Europa series €5 banknote was issued in May 2013, and the €10 note in September 2014.
According to the ECB the €20 banknote that came into circulation this week will be followed, over time, by new versions of the €50, €100, €200 and €500 notes.The €20 note is one of the most widely used of all the euro banknote denominations. It is widely distributed via ATMs, it is accepted by many vending and ticketing machines, and it is often checked for authenticity by retailers using small devices at their counters.