BSP to banks: Accept mutilated yet passable peso bills

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) issued a statement reminding all authorized agent banks to accept mutilated or “doubtful” currencies from the public, pursuant to the regulatory rules that have been in place since 2014.

According to the BSP, damaged banknotes shall be valid for redemption if all of the following requirements are met:

• The remaining surface area is no less than three-fifths of the original size of the banknote;
• A portion of any one of the signatures of the President of the Philippines or the governor of the BSP remains; and
• The presence of the embedded security thread or windowed security thread, unless these are lost or damaged due to fire, water or chemical, or eaten away by termites or rodents and the like.

Banknotes whose security threads were “willfully removed” will not be valid for redemption. —DAXIM L. LUCAS