CEBU
CITY, January 23 (PIA) --- The New Design Series (NDS) bills are only
usable until end of this year.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas urged the public to be mindful of the
deadlines of the upcoming demonetization of the NDS bills.
Atty. Leonides Sumbi, acting director of BSP-Visayas, reiterated
that the NDS bills have tender values only until December 31, 2015.
However, BSP will exchange these bills into New Generation Series
(NGS) until December 31, 2016.
“It means that your NDS bills now can still be used for buying and
paying until end of December this year. By January 1, 2016 they can no
longer be used for anything except that these can still be exchanged for NGS
bills at BSP until end of 2016. So for two years they still have value, after
that no more,” Sumbi clarified.
Effective January 1, 2017, the NDS bills are valueless and no
longer acceptable.
Hazel Arante, BSP information officer, said there are,
however, two exemptions on the deadline for total demonetization.
First, those Overseas Foreign Workers should register at BSP from
October 1 to December 31, 2016 so that they will be given an extension to have
their bills exchanged.
Second are those persons whose NDS bills are under court
litigation or used as marked money.
“If it is the police that owns the mark money they should inform
BSP, or the individual whose money is subject to a case will also have to
inform BSP to be given the extension,” Arante said.
The NGS bills, she said, have more advanced anti-counterfeiting
features compared with the NDS.
Ramona Flores, acting manager of BSP Cash Operations Division,
encouraged the public to keep on circulating the crisp and fit bills. Banks are
encouraged to accept unfit bills.
Unfit bills are those that are crumpled, dirty, partially defaced
but they can still be tendered.
BSP will replace unfit bills if the remaining clean portion is 3/5
of the entire bill, it still has a portion of the signature, security thread
and a portion of the serial number.
The security thread is important considering that many
counterfeiters remove these from smaller bills and use them to
counterfeit bills of higher value.
Changing of bills or demonetization is mandated every five years
as one way of preventing counterfeiters. (rmn/fcc/PIA-Cebu)