New $100 U.S. Bill To Begin Circulating

Federal Reserve released the new $100 and banks, including savings and loans institutions to begin circulating the note on Tuesday.

By H. Nelson Goodson

October 8, 2013

Washington, D.C. - After a 10-year wait including a two year production delay, the new $100 note will begin circulating nationally and worldwide on Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Board announced. The note was unveiled on April.

The $100 note is designed with technology to prevent counterfeiting, but keeping a U.S. currency design. An estimated 3.6 billion new notes will begin circulating and the estimated 6.5 billion older designed bills will continue to remain as legal tender. The U.S. currency user don't need to trade in their older notes for new ones, according to Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Ben S. Bernanke.

"There are a number of security features in the redesigned $100 note, including two new features, the 3-D Security Ribbon and the Bell in the Inkwell. These security features are easy for consumers and merchants to use to authenticate their currency.

"The blue 3-D Security Ribbon on the front of the new $100 note contains images of bells and 100s that move and change from one to the other as you tilt the note. The Bell in the Inkwell on the front of the note is another new security feature. The bell changes color from copper to green when the note is tilted, an effect that makes it seem to appear and disappear within the copper inkwell.

The new design for the $100 note retains three effective security features from the previous design: the portrait watermark of Benjamin Franklin, the security thread, and the color-shifting numeral 100.

"The new $100 note also displays American symbols of freedom, including phrases from the Declaration of Independence and the quill the Founding Fathers used to sign this historic document. Both are located to the right of the portrait on the front of the note.

The back of the note has a new vignette of Independence Hall featuring the rear, rather than the front, of the building. Both the vignette on the back of the note and the portrait on the front have been enlarged, and the oval that previously appeared around both images has been removed," the Federal Reserve Board reported.

The new note is expected to prevent counterfeiting and make it harder for counterfeiters in Peru to circulate counterfeit currency. Peru criminal organizations engaged in counterfeiting import $5.00 U.S. notes and then wash them to remove the ink and print $10's, $20' s and $100 bills on the genuine $5 banknote paper. They are so sophisticated that they can remove the $5 strip and replace it with a $100 strip.

In the last decade, about $103 million of fake U.S. bills have been confiscated in Peru. The Peruvian $10 and $20 U.S. fake bills are circulated in Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina and are difficult to detect. The $100 U.S. fake bills are even harder to detect because they are made by hand instead of an inkjet printer.

Peru counterfeits about 17% of all fake bills in the U.S., but largely circulates the fake $100 bills in the U.S., europe and asia.

The Secret Service says, that counterfeiters earn $20K of real legal tender or currency for every $100K of false bills they produce after expenses.