US Launches a new $100 Banknote with New Security Features

The United States on Tuesday (8th October 2013)  launched a new hi-tech $100 bank note that comes with several new security features including a new touch of colour, as well as special features to foil counterfeiters. In its first remake since 1996, the $100 banknote, which takes a key role in cash transactions for everyone from small traders to big drug traffickers worldwide, sports a blue 3D security ribbon and a bell and inkwell logo that authorities say are particularly difficult to replicate.

These combine with traditional security features, such as a portrait watermark and an embedded security thread that glows pink under ultraviolet light. On the back, too, it depicts Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776. 

It adds a yellowish “100” in one corner and, next to Franklin, a tan quill and bronze-coloured inkwell. Cutting vertically through the middle of the banknote is a blue security ribbon. The new design comes primarily to fight the increasing sophistication of counterfeiters, said Sonja Danburg, program manager in charge of currency education at the Federal Reserve.

The redesigned banknote, which features a portrait of US founding father and scientist Benjamin Franklin, also includes raised "intaglio" printing that gives the notes a distinctive feel, and microprinted words that are difficult to read without magnification.

Below is the specimen copy of the note 

The new US $100 bill is introduced by Michelle Scipione, vice president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank Cash Services Department, during an event at the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial in Philadelphia October 8, 2013.  

 Sandy Juarez, director of project management for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Miami Branch, holds a new $100 bill, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2013, during a news conference at the Federal Reserve building in Doral, Fla. 

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