The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) has revealed that almost $17 billion worth of old banknotes are still in circulation. However, this figure is expected to drop significantly as the July 1, 2025, demonetisation deadline approaches.

The central bank, in response to queries from the Jamaica Observer, said that presently about 6.4 per cent of the old banknotes account for the total value of banknotes in circulation.

“The total dollar value of the old notes now in circulation is $16.9 billion,” the country’s chief financial institution further noted in its responses to the Business Observer.

Up to the end of March, approximately $270.4 billion in net currency issue (notes and coins) were said to be in the hands of the public. Of this amount, $263.2 billion represented the value for notes issued coupled with $7 billion in coins and $258.4 million in Jam-Dex digital currency.

With just under three months remaining until the July 1 cut-off date, the central bank said the old cotton banknotes with denominations $50, $100, $500, $1,000 and $5,000 shall cease to be legal tender, which means that at that time they will no longer be admitted as payment for goods and services.

Despite this, the BOJ has assured the public that it will continue to redeem the old cotton banknotes for their face value indefinitely, at its downtown Kingston location. Once withdrawn from circulation, the demonetised notes will be destroyed, following the standard procedures of how such tenders are treated when they are no longer fit for reissue.

“The details of the process cannot be divulged for security reasons,” Melanie Owen, director in the bank’s communication department, said.

“Following the demonetisation of the old cotton banknotes, cash transactions should only be conducted using the new polymer banknotes, comprising of the $5,000, $2,000, $1,000, $500, $100, and $50 denominations, that have been in circulation since June 2023, and the existing coin denominations of $20, $10, $5 and $1,” the BOJ said in a gazetted notice at the end of last week.

The new series banknotes, officially released to the public almost two years ago, marked the second time since 1960 that the country had moved to issue new currency. The polymer substrate used in the application of the redesigned notes is said to last at least 50 per cent longer than its cotton-based predecessor, which has a lifespan of just about two years.

In addition to cost-saving benefits, the new polymer notes are designed with enhanced security features to help combat counterfeiting. They also include features to aid the visually impaired and provide clearer distinctions among the various denominations. The introduction of the $2,000 bill completed the new series, which now includes six denominations: $50, $100, $500, $1,000, $2,000, and $5,000.

In January this year the Observer reported that there was a looming dispute between BOJ and commercial banks over plans to redesign the polymer banknotes, just two years after their introduction, with the BOJ seeking to remove the Jamaica 60th Independence anniversary insignia, a move banks claimed would come with significant costs to recalibrate automated banking machines (ABMs).

The BOJ, however, was sceptical about the banks’ concerns, sources told the newspaper.

The 60th anniversary insignia was included on the new notes to commemorate Jamaica’s 60th year of Independence from Britain. That 60th anniversary was celebrated in 2022, though the commemorative notes were released almost a year later.

“Now they want to take [the 60th anniversary insignia] off, but that is going back to reissuing the polymer notes… and the machines were calibrated for the design of the notes, and will have to be recalibrated if the notes are redesigned to take off the 60th anniversary,” one source told Observer.

National Commercial Bank Jamaica, for instance, said the process to recalibrate machines to read the proposed new design of the notes without the 60th anniversary insignia could take almost a whole year.

Also, Bank of Nova Scotia Jamaica said adapting its ABMs to read the redesigned notes “would require a similar process to the adjustments done to adapt when the notes were initially redesigned.”

However, BOJ, at the time, was not convinced about some of the arguments proffered.

“The issue with the removal of the 60th anniversary insignia, we are getting exemplars to help them to adapt. We asked for some costing in September, because they said it will cost. We have spoken to the machine vendors and they have told us it is an expensive operation, but we are not convinced, because we have done it before and we have removed it and it wasn’t an issue. They just have to make the machines indifferent to the 60th anniversary logo,” the BOJ said in early December in response to the banks.