BFIs to reject notes with kings' portrait from Tuesday

KATHMANDU, March 15: Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) on Monday instructed the banks and financial institutions not to accept notes with former kings´ portrait and asked people holding such notes to get them exchanged from 104 different counters from Tuesday.



The central bank had launched a drive to withdraw notes bearing kings´ portrait from circulation on government´s request, mainly after the country was declared a republican state. Since then, it has long been appealing to the people to get them exchanged with new bank notes.[break]



If the people still hold notes with kings´ portrait, they will now need to approach eight NRB offices in different parts of the country, 67 branches of Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) and Nepal Bank Limited (NB) operating ´note fund´ and 29 branches of Everest Bank, Global Bank and Nabil undertaking government transactions.



The central bank has reiterated that its policy of withdrawing notes with kings´ portrait does not mean it has demonetized such notes.



"Those notes will continue to hold their worth. It is just that the people will have to get them exchanged with fresh notes from the central bank. We will exchange them even if people approached us after two or three years," said a central bank source.



Contrary to the central bank´s instruction to exchange such notes till March 14, most of the commercial banks and financial institutions refused to accept notes with kings´ portrait on Monday. However, some of their automated teller machines (ATMs) were found issuing notes with kings´ portrait.



As a part of its clean note policy, the central bank has said that it plans to replace banknotes with kings´ portrait with those bearing the image of Mt Everest.



However, concerned officials said continued circulation of more than Rs 10 billion worth of notes with kings´ portrait has been slowing their plan to jump into clean note regime.



The central bank took the initiative after it adopted clean note policy in the monetary policy for the current fiscal year. The initiative aims to withdraw soiled notes from the market, ensuring that only high quality clean notes are circulated in the market.



Under it, the central bank eventually plans to make stapled and handwritten notes not usable, and replace staples on the note packet by paper or plastic bands.

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