500 kwanza banknotes in circulation this month

The 500 banknotes of the New Kwanza Family, Series 2020, will go into circulation on the 17th of this month, after in July the National Bank of Angola made the 200 banknotes available to the market.

According to the director of the Circulating Department of the National Bank of Angola, Sebastião Banganga, based on the Notice 16/20, the conditions are created so that, from the scheduled date, economic agents can have the 2020 series of 500 kwanza banknotes available .

According to him, since it is a public holiday, the most likely is that the banknotes will be available first in the multi-bands and only after that in the commercial branches of the banks.

Sebastião Banganga reassures that there are no reasons for fears or pressure, as the new banknotes coexist with the old ones and the quantity to be injected will depend on the demand at the moment.

“We cannot specify the quantity of banknotes to be introduced, so as not to alarm the market. What is certain is that the notes exist and are sufficient to gradually introduce themselves into the circuit. This measure aims to curb any inflation trends ”, he explained.

In this sense, the director of the Circulating Sector advances that the notes are already available in the BNA delegations and that the banks can also withdraw them during this period that precedes the entry into circulation.

He said that the current notes are more resistant to tears and dirt, which reduces the levels of wear. They are also more resistant to water, a feature that provides users with more durable notes and with easily identifiable security standards, capable of eliminating any possibility of counterfeiting.

In terms of comparison with the 200 banknote, which is 120/62 cm and blue, the 500 banknote is 126/66 cm and is brown.

The BNA program set the date of July 30, already completed, for the entry of the 200 note and the placement of the others progressively. Thus, the 500 banknote will enter on 17 September, the 1,000 to 1 October, 2,000 to 11 November and 5,000 in January 2021.

According to Sebastião Banganga, the 2012 banknotes will be in circulation until 31 December 2021. As of January 1, 2022, notes from the 2012 series are no longer accepted. From 1 January to 30 June, they are valid only for deposits in bank accounts. From 1 July 2022 to 31 December 2026, they can be exchanged, but only at the central bank and its regional delegations.

Inflation
Regarding the successive fears of possible inflation with the entry of new notes, Sebastião Banganga acknowledged the hard work of awareness that the BNA and the media carried out. It also allowed that in a short time the economic agents, especially the popular ones, gained greater awareness that this was not an act of devaluation.

Currency held by the public is 337.5 billion
The stock of banknotes and coins held by the public, until the end of August, was estimated by the BNA at 337.5 billion kwanzas, against the 369.6 billion recorded in July.

The data were made available to Jornal de Angola by the National Bank yesterday.

According to the table, in June, the public held banknotes and coins estimated at 391.6 billion and 387 billion in May.

At the March Monetary Policy Committee session, which evaluated February data, the monetary aggregate M2 in national currency, which comprises all bank deposits in national currency and banknotes and coins held by the public, had contracted 6 , 24 percent from the level observed in January 2020. At that time, it went from 4.94 billion to 4.64 billion. This decrease was reflected in deposits that contracted at 299.21 billion and in banknotes and coins held by the public that contracted at 9.18 billion.

The expansion of the Monetary Base, according to the central bank, was reflected in the increase of bank reserves in national currency by 138.40 billion (14.40), and the banknotes and coins in circulation contracted on the occasion on 4, 91 billion (1.02).

On July 30, when the 200 banknotes entered, BNA had introduced 20 million banknotes to the market. After that, more quantities were gradually introduced, always responding to the needs of the money market.