New Japanese Banknotes with high-security features

New Japanese Banknotes with high-security features are set to enter circulation beginning in April 2024. The new notes incorporate anti-counterfeiting tech such as micro printing, luminescent ink, 3D holograms and high-definition watermarks. The last time Japan revamped its banknotes was in 2004. I still remember checking out a 5000 yen note months before my first trip to Japan. It will be interesting to see and touch these new banknotes myself next year. Lots of testing/upgrading is underway with ATMs, vending machines and other automated systems to ensure they can accept and read the new notes.

Japanese Banknotes – front and back

The face of the new 10,000-yen note is industrialist Shibusawa Eiichi (1840-1931), the “father of capitalism in Japan”, while the back depicts the Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building. The 5,000-yen note features a woman, education pioneer Tsuda Umeko (1864-1929) with Japanese wisteria flowers on the reverse side. On the 1,000-yen notes, there is Kitasato Shibasaburo (1853-1931), a Japanese physician and bacteriologist who helped lay the foundations of modern medicine in Japan. On the back of the 1,000-yen note is the artwork “Under the Wave off Kanagawa” from the “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji” by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).

• Japan unveils new high-security banknotes to be issued from FY2024