BSP reminds public to turn over old bills

CEBU, Philippines – People have barely 29 days left to use old peso bills to buy goods and services.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas-Cebu Regional Office is making a last-minute call to the public to have their old bills exchanged with new ones in their banks or directly in BSP.

BSP-Cebu Director Leonides B. Sumbi told The FREEMAN yesterday that they have noticed a surge in exchanges of old bank notes known as the New Design Series (NDS) from the public lately.

“It is starting to come in bulk already,” Sumbi said in an interview, adding they had received bundles and wrappers of old bills just last week from the public.

“We can foresee a huge influx of NDS bank notes especially this month considering the holidays in December,” the BSP official added.

Sumbi reiterated the central bank’s call to turn over now the old bills to the banks.

“Do not wait towards the end of the year,” she said.

Sumbi also said that banks were also depositing old bills to the BSP.

Hazel Arante of BSP-Cebu, citing official data, said that there were around 432 million pieces of NDS bills in circulation as of September 30 this year.

There were also 2.3 billion pieces of circulating new bills known as the New Generation Currency (NGC).

The BSP started in January this year the demonetization of the old peso bills to remove the currency’s monetary value.

The NDS bills were introduced in 1985 or 30 years ago and are now being replaced by NGC series which was launched in 2010.

The old bank notes are only good for buying goods and services until December 31, 2015. The public, however, is given until December 31, 2016 to exchange old notes with new ones in banks and BSP.

Starting January 1, 2017 old bills that have not been exchanged will no longer have any monetary value and will be considered demonetized. (FREEMAN)