Central Banks and Cash Round-Up

Further to the coverage in the August issue of the cash information contained in the latest annual reports of central banks in Europe, this month we take a look at some from Africa and the Middle East.

Bank of Botswana (BOB)

Clean Note Policy: during 2022, the BOB adopted stringent sorting levels (from medium to high), ensuring that only clean banknotes were in circulation in line with its Clean Banknotes and Coin Policy. Moreover, it withdrew from circulation coins amounting to P44.7 million, representing 32.6% of the total coins in circulation as of 1 November 2021, when the exercise began.

Banknotes: the number of banknotes decreased by 7.6% from 43.5 million in December 2021 to 43.2 million in December 2022 (December 2020, it was 49.6 million). Consequently, the total value of banknotes in circulation decreased from P4.2 billion to P4.1 billion during the same period.