Categories
Design Kuwait

Exclusive: Official Images of the New Kuwaiti Currency

kuwaitcurrency

A few hours ago the Central Bank of Kuwait revealed the new design of the Kuwaiti currency and a few moments ago I obtained the official images of the currency. The new Kuwaiti Dinars were designed by the famous De La Rue company in the UK. They’ve been around since 1821 and they sell high-security paper and printing technology for over 150 national currencies around the world. The new notes have plastic polymer in them making them difficult to tear as well as making them a lot more durable for day to day use.

ten

I love the new designs and can’t wait till they go into circulation in the next couple of months. My only criticism is the lack of a KD50 note, KD20 just isn’t large enough today. Check out all the notes below.

img_4753
img_4754
img_4744
img_4747
img_4751
img_4750
img_4745
img_4748
img_4746
img_4749
img_4752
img_4743

Thanks Patrick

124 replies on “Exclusive: Official Images of the New Kuwaiti Currency”

Wow, they really are beautiful! They will still be the varying sizes, correct?

And I agree – they need a 50KD note these days!

you clearly do not understand economics..

it’s a VERY good thing we only need a 20
we don’t NEED a 50KD note.. you just WANT one.. but we don’t need one..

Then kindly enlighten us if we don’t know economics instead of saying “we don’t need a 50 KD note” !!! Maybe you don’t understand economics yourself if your comments are very simple and only repeat basic statements that would be given to 3 or 4 year old children. Why is it a very good thing??? Why don’t we need 50 KD notes???

You do realize that in some countries (I’m not talking totally backward countries) KD 50 is the monthly budget for a middle class family.
why would anybody need a KD50 note..
they should probably have KD 50 notes and name it rich peoples note.

imagine going to store buying a pack of smokes and paying the guy 50 bucks.. that’s crazy.

Wow, please, I am not the only one who thought a 50KD note was a good idea.

Yes, I know some countries 50KD is a lot of money, and yes, paying with a 50KD at a bakala for something small would probably not work, but even in the US, a lot of small shops won’t take 50s or 100s for small purchases either, not because they don’t want your money or sale, but just that it would use up so much of their “change making” money.

I was thinking of when I sold my car for 4800KD and the guy came with 4 envelopes of cash (10KD and 20KD notes). And our landlord will ONLY accept cash, so yes, we are always having to get a stack of bills for that.

So yes, I WANT a 50KD note and I admit I don’t understand why it would be bad economics – it is not like they have to print MORE money, just a different denomination for some of it? Maybe instead of just making a remark, how about explaining it, please, so that I (and all the others saying the same thing) DO understand how it affects the economics? I am a teacher (not of economics) and have no problem admitting I don’t understand something, but would love to learn. I am not a teacher of science or medical studies, but recently took CPR and first aid training, to learn.

“In economics, inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation reflects a reduction in the purchasing power per unit of money – a loss of real value in the medium of exchange and unit of account within the economy.”

giving the fact KWD is the strongest currency on planet earth, having a 50 KD note is a very very bad idea

in Addition to what thewestbanker said..

take this as an example.. Some years back india has 2 paise, 5 paise, 10 paise, 25 paise as the lowest currency & Rs 500 as the biggest..
so with inflation the purchasing power of the rupee dropped.. there came a point when 2-25 paise couldnt buy you anything.. so they discontinued them..

now 500Rs was being used frequently… so they inroduced 1000Rs..

so basically.. the basically how a govt functions is when the purchsing power of the currency drops (inflation) they issue new currency with higher denominator.

the govt expects you to deal in cheques when you deal large amounts.. like selling a car.. buying a house etc..

Does issuing banknotes of higher denomination cause inflation, or is it just a symptom of inflation?

As Mark mentioned.. its a symptom..
The Govt can issue notes of KD 500 if they wish for.. but the Govts issue only what is required.. that’s why you dont find higher denominator notes.

may be tomorrow if the Govt feels that the purchasing power of the KD is decreased.. they might consider issuing a higher denominator note.

haha! what about singapore & brunei issuing $10000 notes ? i never heard inflation of either singapore or brunei dollar~ (^_^)

Some of the designs are actually nice but the others have a weird blend of color and images. The 1/2 kd looks like something the green lantern would pull out from his pocket…but I think the main problem with all of them is that with such a lot of blend and shades of colors in each note will make it difficult to get accustomed to.

Is multicolor the new age money?

Anyway, let’s not be in a situation to wish for a 50 kd notes… that would mean money has less value…and that would be the work of people who spend a lot attracting vedors to increase prices… basic demand pull inflation.

Im actually glad kuwaiti dinar is so strong… makes overseas purchases less expensive.

Marcel thats called inflation. The 50kd note might devalue the currency if everyone starts using it regularly. Shop keepers and businesses will pay attention to this pattern of over spending thus jacking up their prices aka demand pull inflation.

Thats the case in europe too. The regular smaller digits havent sufficed in satisfying people’s spending needs thus having a 500 note is more convenient than smaller notes. And the story will just excalate with larger currencies. Why do you think zimbabwe has notes in billion numerals. This fix is not a real fix… it just encourages people to spend more and thus encourages prices to increase.

That’s now how it works dude.

If an item costs KD10 and you pay with a KD20 or KD50 bill the item still costs KD10. You get kd10 back if you use a 20 bill and 40 back if you use a 50 bill. That’s not over spending.

I am horrible at Maths and finance and know this!

Isn’t inflation sometimes caused by printing MORE money as opposed to bigger notes? If they print the same value we should be fine, no?

man is this is true then whoever designed the coins must have been trippin at the time of designing.. lol..

imagine a purple coin 😛

Maybe they will launch with the opening of the new central bank of Kuwait building !
now adays majority of the shoppers use knet or credit cards besides this many things are online from booking tickets to hotels !

nevertheless its cool to have new currency !

I can’t see any. Are you referring to the “م” in “المحافظ”? Its there but they’re using a font/writing style which apparently you’re not familiar with.

Ask the Holy quran

يَا أَيُّهَا النَّبِيُّ حَرِّضِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ عَلَى الْقِتَالِ ۚ إِنْ يَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ عِشْرُونَ صَابِرُونَ يَغْلِبُوا مِائَتَيْنِ ۚ وَإِنْ يَكُنْ مِنْكُمْ مِائَةٌ يَغْلِبُوا أَلْفًا مِنَ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِأَنَّهُمْ قَوْمٌ لَا يَفْقَهُونَ

i know its on the ر not on the و
am giving Quran as a proof of whats correct, that the 20 KD note is wrong

I do not like the new look at all! it has too many colors and the images used are awkward and random(what does a bird and a camel have to do with anything??)and they look like school textbook covers.

Shockingly, the serial number of all these currency notes is the same as the password of my e-mail accounts and my online banking accounts. How the Central Bank knew of my passwords?

About the 50KD Note, about a year ago i brought that up to one of the currency dealers in the market. He has been in the business for over 25 years, he told me the CBK will not release a 50KD note anytime soon. Due to the fact that the strength or the Value of the Kuwaiti Dinar will go down/Decrease, making Bahraini Dinar the most valuable currency in the world. Kuwait needs to maintain its Value. That is according to what i have been told me, correct me if im wrong.

It won’t, unless inflation rises accordingly.

There is absolutely no correlation between currency denominations and the “power” of the currency. The only slight correlation (even that is anecdotal) is that with inflation, the denominations printed are adjusted; and more commonly – the lowest denomination is dropped. However this takes a long time to take effect.

There is a 500 Euro note, which is worth a lot more than 20 KD (a Euro is composed of 100 euro cents).

The pound maxes out at 50 as the highest denomination; and it is slightly larger (in exchange rate equivalent) to 20 KD; but the pound is 100 pence just like the Euro.

Now, is the Euro “weaker” than the pound?

Exactly.

I also hate how widespread the myth is that the Kuwaiti Dinar is the most “valuable” or “powerful” currency in the world, that’s measured by purchasing power.

The theory is that if the government issues higher denomination like the 50KD note it could be interpreted by the public as a sing of over issuing of currency which may drive the price level up even though the total stock money is held constant

The US has a 100 dollar note, Australia has a 100 note, woopty doo. Walking around with a wad of 20KD’s is ridiculous. You need 50’s and 100’s, period. Turning up to buy a car/pay school fees/buy a plane ticket/pay rent, with Sultan centre bags filled with money is ludicrous. (This is Kuwait, not everybody has Knet.)
Having a currency that only goes up to 20 is another throwback from the 70’s/80’s that Kuwait suffers from, the rest is smoke and b/s.

Turning up to buy a car/pay school fees/buy a plane ticket/pay rent, with Sultan centre bags filled with money is ludicrous????

R u serious? with sultan centre bags with money?? u must be really really rich.

this is Kuwait.. not Zimbabwe.. you can carry enough money in your wallet to pay school fees for 5 kids.. and enough money in your pockets to buy a car..

i feel like some people here treat 20KD like 5KD.. this is becoming a rich peoples blog..damn!

why would anyone want a KD 50 note? as far as i know the currency is directly related to to purchasing power..

that’s why you used to have 250KD notes in Iraq.. coz 250KD couldnt buy much.

but in kuwait 20KD can buy a lot.

5 kids, if each kids tuition is 2000KD then thats 10,000kd. That’s 500xKD20 and that won’t fit into a wallet. My rent doesn’t even fit into my wallet either and I pay under KD500. I mean you could fit it but it just won’t fold and close.

2000KD tuition? wow? they should ask for a cheque. the schools that i know charge around 150kd per 3 months 🙂

and my rent fits in my wallet 😉

Burhan I agree with you on the point about inflation. But I think there’s definitely a strong (though not perfect) correlation between higher currency denominations and a weaker currency.

Zimbabwe has a one trillion dollar note because its currency has become next to worthless because of hyperinflation. If you look at all the “weaker” currencies in the world, they all have much larger denominations than “stronger” currencies – Vietnam has a 500,000 note, Turkmenistan has a 10,000 note. But then again this is just to facilitate use of the money, otherwise Zimbabweans will have to use truckloads of cash just to buy a loaf of bread.

So I think the key point is that a larger note does not CAUSE the currency to be weaker, but the direction of causality goes the other way round – a weaker currency causes notes to be larger. So I think introducing a 50 KD note would not cause the dinar to drop in value.

Yes, Mark. They had to create the note as a result of inflation. But creating a larger note in itself does not cause inflation.

It does when it encourages people to regularly use it meaning businesses will be erncouraged to increase prices… this will cause demand pull inflation… a viscous cycle!

I think the reason got to do more with money laundering and international money smuggling than anything else.

If they introduce a large bill, people will start using this most powerful currency in the world to smuggle largest amount of money in the largest volumetric size possible! That is exactly whats happening now with the 1,000 UAE dirham bill.

They took out the “In God We Trust” bit.

Yet, America, the so called secular democracy still has it on the USD bill.

Why are most of them in Arabic and contain the Kuwaiti emblem while some of them are in English and don’t have Kuwait emblem?

They should remove the camel from the 10 KD note.

There were never any camels in all of Kuwait’s previous banknotes since 1961

I don’t think previous Kuwaiti banknotes displayed all models/types of Kuwaiti boats either. Thats one of the things I like about this new currency.

Racist troll, I’m not Iranian.

I hate all animals equally, including camels, turtles, fish, and eagles.

This isn’t a zoo. The banknotes contain 4 different animals, ya3ni we’re zoo animal lovers now

I want to see whoever designed this new currency to ask him/her what sort of drug they were on when they designed these bills.

Does anybody know what are the dimensions? When Australia went polymer they were all the same height, but the length increased with the value. Do you think this is going to be the same?

Maybe embarrassing to a Perssian like yourself, but for Arabs including Kuwaitis its a symbol of glory when the Arabs destroyed many neighbouring civilisations

I’m not Persian, stop trolling.

I’m Kuwaiti, you silly troll.

I don’t like the camel, kaify. I also don’t like the fish and turtle 1/2 KD banknote

This isn’t a zoo.

You use this as an opportunity to display your racism and bigotry… that is very mature of you

Qabazard there was no racism or bigotry meant in my comment, calling an Irish and Irish or a chinese a chinese is not an insult unless he is trying to hide something, my point is how can someone carry a grudge against an animal for 1400 years, look at it as if its a cute Lama with some back problem, and go on with your life

I found the turtle bit interesting… Throughout my childhood I never heard anything about turtles in Kuwait.

All these animals and pictures on these new notes represent wildlife and buildings boats etc in kuwait and it’s history there’s nothing wrong with them

and yes there are loads of turtles at bubyan

Agreed! All hail Arabian camels and horses! With the help of these glorious animals, Arabs built an empire stretching from Spain to China!

Where are the women/girls? They included a diver so why couldn’t they include traditionally dressed women as well? This is upsetting. In my opinion some of the current designs are great and don’t need changing.

Good remark. As far as I recall the girls have always been on the currency and they just removed them. They also removed another thing… “In God We Trust” “وبالله نستعين”.

The person behind these designs must have been really extremist!

I’m with you. I don’t understand why a freaking door is more important than having the young girls.

I want to like these designs, but there is a lot going on in some of them, and I really wish the colors were more distinctive. As it is now, a lot of these colors look similar. I’m gonna miss the pink.

+1, the 50 kd note is totally needed mainly for rent. Almost everyone pays for that in cash, and most pay more than 300 KD.

On a side note, since kuwait only exports oil, and oil is traded only in US dollars, why don’t we just skip the dinar and use dollars directly ? Billions are lost because of this. So the country gets paid in dollars, converts it into dinars to pay for its citizens/companies , who in turn convert it back to US dollars, so that they can buy goods, import them, and sell them back in dinars. Sounds insane.

@ibnturab, thats the whole point of making the dinar strong. Or else… we’d be developing faster than china! lol

actually paying rent in K-Net is much better, even safer for the “Hares”, I’ve heard of multiple burglary cases where the poor guy gets robbed by guys pretending they are police or criminal investigators

The swiss have 1000 chf bill which is approximately 315 kwd. being paid the rent with a bill or two would feel boring

I remember some years ago on tv a genius Kuwaiti official claimed that printing a 50 or 100kd note will make it easier for drug trafficers to conduct their criminal activities, Kuwait government brainstorming at its best.

The old notes will get accepted for 2-3 years and then become permanently invalid

In 2016 the old notes will become invalid

The new notes will still be accepted at the Central Bank for 10 years after these new ones are introduced.

Its just that in general circulation the old notes will be phased out by 2016. To expedite the removal of the old currency from general circulation; the govt is launching them just before the start of Ramadan as its the period where most currency is exchanged.

You’ll also notice that ATMs will stop dispensing old notes.

In Lebanon our biggest note is LL 100,000 = KD 20

This is also due to hyperinflation from the civil war where the currency became worthless. So higher denomination will not lead to higher inflation, rather it’s the opposite.

I mean come on.. PURPLE.

This really shows our level of class and taste. Absolutely zero.

This currency is a perfect example to show what we really are.

CLOWNS

are Canadians and Europeans clowns too?

10 Canadian Dollars bill
500 Euro bill
10 Hong Kong Dollar bill

they’re all purple!

@3azeez May 19, 2014 at 9:29 pm
Most acceptable explanation.

Other is that most regular shops in Europe don’t accept any note with a value over 50 Euro because for the practical reason that an average grocery store will run out of change all the time.

Banknotes of 100 and 500 are rare in cash-payments in Europe. Whenever you use them, be aware that people might easily have a prejudiced opinion on you. And not a positive one. There’s a general assumption that a person who uses big banknotes instead of ‘plastic’, has to be involved in drugs, human trafficking or other illegal practices. These people don’t want to be paid in any other way than cash. For obvious reasons of course.
To keep money out of sight (and hands) of the Tax Administration and/or the Justice Department, are other commonly-known reasons.

There are, as always, exceptions on the rule, like when you’ve sold your car for example. Especially to a private person it can be safer to receive the money in notes and deposit it yourself on a bank-account. (Assuming that you own a device which can check the banknotes on authenticity).
.
The price of oil, which is highly influenced by Geo-politics, is/was (one of-) the most important reason of inflation. Oil is not only a fuel, but also used as a basic material in almost everything we use every day. So if the price goes up, all oil-depending nations will experience a price raise for basically everything. From fuel, bread, fly-ticket, grease, flowers, taxis, heating and so on.
Secondly the oil-producing nations will face inflation. All import products will increase in price as result of earlier mentioned economic virtuality.

Inflation is normally a healthy part of an economy, because it decreases National-debts. Governments in e.g. Europe and the U.S. raise money by taxes and barrow money on the capital-market by selling Bonds. Because the European economy use to be strong, and seemingly getting stronger, the interest on these Bonds were (too-) low and led to overspending by Governments.
At first it wasn’t such a big problem because the rate on the Bonds were on average lower than the inflation in a year, which consequently reduced the value of the debts and made it again attractive for the individual countries to sell new Bonds to repay the old debt and simultaneously repair their budget-shortfall.
A Perpetual motion that couldn’t last forever and one of the causes of the current world-wide financial crisis.

The people in Europe had to suffer from big loses in income due to the already 7 year lasting crisis. This means that they don’t have the same amount of money anymore to spend on luxury or food at the same level as 2007.
So if the supply stays the same, but people don’t buy it anymore or delay purchases because they don’t have the money, then sellers have to narrow their profit to the minimum. Lower prices as a result: Deflation.
Nice if you’re waiting for a bargain on a new Television, but in the end devastating for the economy.
.
The new notes are nice and colorful. Not bad at all.
My country has the Euro. In every way, lay-out and value, a bantling.

.

I think it’s okay that they took out “We seek god’s assistance” – it keeps politics separate from currency. I do think that they should put women somewhere on the currency. Preferably not the 1/4 dinar again.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *