IRAQ: NEW BANK NOTES ISSUED TO IRAQI BANKS

Record ID: 566304

  • Title: IRAQ: NEW BANK NOTES ISSUED TO IRAQI BANKS
  • Date: 15th October 2003
  • Summary: (W4) BAGHDAD, IRAQ (OCTOBER 15, 2003) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF EXTERIOR OF CREDIT BANK OF IRAQ 0.05 2. SLV SECURITY OFFICER WITH NUMBER OF PEOPLE AT ENTRANCE 0.10 3. CLOSE OF SECURITY OFFICER HOLDING RIFLE 0.16 4. WIDE OF BANK STAFF AND PEOPLE TRADING NOTES AT WINDOW 0.21 5. SCU CUSTOMER BEHIND WINDOW BARS HANDING IN OLD BANKNOTES 0.30 6. CLOSE OF CURRENCY BEING COUNTED BY MACHINE 0.36 7. SMV BANK CUSTOMERS WAITING AT CASHIER'S COUNTER 0.44 8. SCU CHILD HIDING BEHIND MOTHER'S SKIRTS 0.49 9. SLV CUSTOMERS AT COUNTERS 0.56 10. CLOSE OF BUNDLES OF OLD CURRENCY STACKED UP 1.03 11. VARIOUS BANK STAFF AT COUNTERS, COUNTING OLD BANK NOTES WITH SADDAM'S PICTURE (3 SHOTS) 1.20 12. CLOSE OF MAN HOLDING NEW BANKNOTES OUTSIDE BANK 1.27 (W5) MOSUL, IRAQ (OCTOBER 15, 2003) (REUTERS) 13. EXTERIOR OF AL-RAFIDEEN BANK, UMM AL-RABE'EEN BRANCH 14. VARIOUS PEOPLE QUEUING OUTSIDE THE BANK (3 SHOTS) 1.40 15. SLV U.S .SOLDIERS OUTSIDE BANK 1.46 16. VARIOUS OF U.S. SOLDIER COUNTING OUT NEW NOTES 1.56 17. CLOSE OF NEW CURRENCY BUNDLES BEING UNWRAPPED 2.03 18. CLOSE OF AUTOMATED MACHINE COUNTING BANKNOTES (2 SHOTS) 2.17 19. SMV BANK EMPLOYEE COUNTING OLD BANKNOTES WITH IMAGE OF SADDAM HUSSEIN/ SCU BANK NOTE 2.25 20. SMV WOMEN BANK EMPLOYEES WITH NEW BANK NOTES 2.30 21. SMV PEOPLE QUEUING IN FRONT OF BANK DESK 2.36 (W5) IRBIL, IRAQ (OCTOBER 15, 2003) (REUTERS) 22. WIDE /PAN OF CROWDS OUTSIDE AL-RASHID BANK 2.46 23. SLV PEOPLE, SOME WEARING KURDISH TRADITIONAL DRESS QUEUING OUTSIDE BANK 2.49 24. VARIOUS, KURDISH MEN INSIDE BANK EXCHANGING BANKNOTES (2 SHOTS) 3.00 25. VARIOUS OF NOTES BEING COUNTED BY CASHIER (2 SHOTS) 3.08 26. SMV U.S. SOLDIER LOOKING ON AS OLD BANKNOTES HANDED TO BANK EMPLOYEE 3.14 27. SMV BANK TELLERS COUNTING NOTES AND USING CALCULATING MACHINES 3.23 28. VARIOUS ,OF BUNDLES OF BANK NOTES STACKED UP 3.29 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 30th October 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BAGHDAD, MOSUL AND IRBIL, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVACTZ8JXBAL3AK9RKWGDONLK27E
  • Story Text: New banknotes devoid of the image of ousted
    leader Saddam Hussein have been released into circulation in Iraq,
    replacing the old dinar, many of which were fakes.




    Iraqis crowded into banks on Wednesday (October 15)
    to swap tattered banknotes for crisp new currency issued by
    the U.S.-led administration, which is seeking to erase the
    image of Saddam Hussein from postwar Iraq.

    Bank staff confiscated large quantities of fake notes
    at heavily guarded exchange points in the capital on the
    first day of an ambitious programme to recycle four
    trillion dinars in the next three months.

    Iraq issued millions of banknotes without
    anti-counterfeiting safeguards such as watermarks, after
    United Nations sanctions were imposed in 1990.

    Older bills, popularly known as Swiss dinars, continued
    to circulate in the north, governed as an autonomous region
    by Kurds since it was wrested from Saddam's control in
    1991.

    The U.S-led administration has ordered all images of
    Saddam to be removed from monuments, murals and school
    textbooks. But in the months following the war it was
    forced to print billions of dinars bearing the face of the
    deposed dictator to ease a shortage of low-denomination
    bills.

    The new Iraqi notes, modelled on the older Swiss dinar,
    carry pictures of an ancient Babylonian ruler and a 10th
    century Iraqi mathematician in place of the smiling face of
    Saddam.

    Tellers in banks across the country stacked bundles of
    violet-coloured 250 dinar notes bearing Saddam's visage and
    ran them through new counting machines, face down.

    Six new denominations ranging from 50 dinars to 25,000
    dinars will replace both the Swiss notes and Saddam-era
    bills, circulating in central and southern Iraq.

    Iraqis have three months to trade in their old bills at
    250 bank branches across the country, at a rate of one new
    dinar to one Saddam dinar and 150 new dinars for each Swiss
    dinar.

    The new notes are printed by the same firm that made
    the old Swiss dinar; Britain's De La Rue Plc.

    The dinar edged down in value on Wednesday, fetching
    2,100 to the dollar, compared to 1,900 to 2,000 earlier in
    the week, as Iraqis bought greenbacks to avoid being caught
    with fake notes.


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