Currency Redesign: Guinea replaces banknotes to address counterfeiting, inflation

*Guinea Central Bank’s demonetisation exercise, started May 2022, will be completed by June 2023 to mark the end of the series of high-value banknotes introduced into circulation in the country since 2012

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The Central Bank of Guinea is removing a series of 10,000 Guinean Franc notes from circulation, and replacing them with new designs as it seeks to root out counterfeits and pressures on price growth.

ConsumerConnect learnt the current demonetisation exercise, which started May 2022, will be completed June this year, to mark the end of the series of high-value banknotes introduced into circulation in 2012.

Recall that Nigeria, November 2022, redesigned, produced and released new banknotes into circulation in N200, N500 and N1000 denominations.

Speaking on the currency replacement, Governor Karamo Kaba in a speech Wednesday, March 1, in the capital, Conakry, declared “the fight against counterfeiting will continue with the aim of strengthening banknotes security.

“Combined with the central bank’s policies to strengthen foreign-exchange reserves, this will help us to maintain inflation rate in single digit by the end of the year.”

Guinea’s inflation had remained unchanged at 8.6 percent December 2023, from a month earlier, in line with a single digit target by the Guinean central bank, reports Bloomberg.

Kaba expects the economy to grow 6.1 percent this year from 5.3 percent 2022, if price growth remains anchored.