A year ago, I wrote about the new designs for the Costa Rica currency. The new 20,000s were released some time ago, but everything else was put on hold when they realized the new designs were not secure enough. Well, today, Banco Central released the new 1,000s and 2,000s!
New design for the front of the Costa Rican 2000 colones bill.
I’m excited to see the new brightly colored designs, but it’s going to be a little inconvenient because the old bills are being rotated out of circulation, soon.
We can use the old 1000 and 2000 colones bills until August 31, 2011. Between August 31 and October 31, the old bills can only be exchanged or deposited into any bank. After October 31, 2011, the old bills can only be exchanged for new bills in Banco Central.
This might not sound like a big inconvenience to someone living outside of Costa Rica, but if you live here you know that restrictions like this can be a huge hinderance in your daily routine.
I imagine there will be plenty of times when I receive the old money as change and there will be nothing I can do about it except routinely go to Banco Central to exchange money. And the lines at the banks will be longer because everyone else will be doing the same thing.
Might as well go ahead and add this to my weekly routine – 2 or 3 more hours a week at the bank, waiting to exchange money.
I wonder how long it will take for the old bills to work their way out of circulation?
I’m most excited about the 50,000 colones bill because it is purple with a butterfly!
wow 50 mil note? Why don’t they just reset the currency?
bwahahahha, reset the currency? in Costa Rica? Roy, that would require organization. From a government that can’t name the streets. lol. At least they recognized the need for a higher denomination of bill. Just like the locals say: poco a poco.
What are you talking about? The streets indeed have names. I think what you are referring to is the lack of numbers on the houses, buildings, etc. And that is the way the majority of Ticos like it, thank you very much. The 50 mil notes you will be very lucky to even see unless you request them or happen to do large transactions. You rarely see even the 20 mil notes.
I don’t really see, either, why you think it’s going to be a hassle when the old notes expire. They have taken coins out of circulation recently and it went very smoothly. I never got stuck with the old ones or had to stand in a bank line. After August 31st you simply refuse, like everyone else, to take the old 1 mil and 2 mil notes, end of story. They can give you either new notes or coins. I also see no need for a “reset” of the currency since most transactions are small and you just get used to it. It’s not as if there were 1 colone coins around. A 1 mil note is 2 bucks, so in the U.S. they actually have a smaller note and they don’t reset their currency.
Hi Casey, thanks for the comment.
Some of the streets have names. I’m definitely referring to the streets without names.
I see 20 mil notes all the time. They come out of the ATMs. A lot.
The 50,000 will be useful. I don’t understand why you think they will be so rare?
I see the old notes expiring as a hassle – that is my prediction, my opinion. There were problems with the old coins being handed out as change. What are you going to do? Refuse to take your change when the store owner insists it is all they have to give? Are you going to refuse a paying customer who only has the old bills? Times are hard and a lot of people don’t have the luxury of being able to turn down money.
As far as reseting the currency, I would think that all those zeros are pretty hard to work with in the databases, but I really don’t know anything about that side of economics. I imagine reseting the currency is a huge undertaking, so it is amusing to me to envision the Costa Rican government taking that on. Regardless of whether it is a good idea or not. Maybe you haven’t had enough interaction with the bureaucracy here to be easily amused by it. I certainly have.
20 mil notes don’t come out of the ATMs down here in Pérez very often. A lot of businesses just don’t have change even for 10 mil notes sometimes. Maybe different where you are. I’m only telling you based on the time I’ve lived here that I rarely see a 20 mil note, almost always 10’s. We had no problem with the coins changing and yes, I would absolutely refuse to take an old note after 8/31. They can cancel my transaction or give me real change. You’ll see those old notes disappear very quickly. No one, not even the merchants want to have to go to the bank.
I see absolutely no reason to “reset” the currency. They are just zeroes and remember that you don’t have any decimal point as you do with, say, U.S. currency. Just zeroes are a lot easier to deal with than decimal points, believe me. Besides, people just don’t make that much money or deal with large sums so the amount of zeroes is probably the same as in the U.S. Also, it’s not the CR Colone that’s been devaluing the last year, it’s the dollar!
Yes, I’ve had plenty of interaction with the bureaucracy. It can be amusing as it can be anywhere. It’s a two-edged sword. You could have a super-efficient bureaucracy (relatively speaking) as in the U.S. but then you have even more rules (sometimes arbitrary) to follow and it ends up costing you a LOT more money. I think too often people (ex-pats) try to apply their own cultural framework and when it doesn’t line up with the reality of a different country they tend to criticize and belittle it instead of trying to understand it. That’s human nature, but it doesn’t make it right.
I really appreciate your comments. It’s great to get another perspective and also one from a different town. It’s interesting how different one county/town can be from the next here in Costa Rica.
Great point about the decimal point.
I really hope your more positive outlook is what comes to pass with these new bills. I’m excited to see the new designs!