By Sharon Richards WINN From Caribbean News Now

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has given assurances that the EC dollar remains stable and that Eastern Caribbean banknotes are protected by the various security features of the notes.

Deputy director of the Currency Management Department, Rosbert Humphrey, said, “At this time the situation that has been circulating via social is only unique to Grenada. We have no reports from the other Eastern Caribbean territories, so it’s just Grenada.”

The Royal Grenada Police Force recently seized three counterfeit $50 notes and one $100 note.

Humphrey says there is no need for the public to be alarmed:

“There is no real reason for persons to be worried at this time; there were three $50 dollar counterfeit notes that were received in Grenada and one $100 dollar counterfeit note received. So there’s no real reason just a total of four notes that were actually received by the police in Grenada. I just want to assure the general public that the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank notes have a lot of security features so we are basically secure, we are safe.

“However you will find from time to time especially around Christmas time, carnival time that person would attempt to actually counterfeit or duplicate them. I must remind the public though that we have a quite a lot of trained persons in the police force in the Eastern Caribbean and our trained persons here at the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank. Notwithstanding that, the commercial banks also have personnel who are trained to actually differentiate genuine notes from counterfeit bank notes.”

The ECCB urged the public to be vigilant, particularly during Christmas and carnival festivities when the bank said perpetrators tend to engage in the production and circulation of counterfeit notes.

The Central Bank also reminded the public that it is an offence to be in possession of counterfeit EC notes.

IMAGE: ec_currency.jpg

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