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€500 'Bin Laden' of banknotes is to be axed
Source: The Guardian
€500 'Bin Laden' of banknotes is to be axed
ECB’s governing council votes to stop issuing the notes on the grounds
that they are too often used to finance crime
Jon Henley European affairs correspondent
Wednesday 4 May 2016 08.30 BST
The European Central Bank is phasing out the €500 (£400) note, nicknamed the “Bin Laden” of banknotes because of its associations with money-laundering and terror financing – and because while many people know what it looks like, few have ever seen one.
The ECB announced on Wednesday that the fuchsia-coloured bills, the highest denomination of the eurozone’s seven banknotes, would no longer be printed or distributed from 2018, on the grounds that they are too often used to finance crime.
The move, approved by the bank’s governing council meeting in Frankfurt, comes after months of mounting pressure from France – which has been working to clamp down on terrorist financing in the wake of last year’s bloody attacks in Paris – but equally stiff opposition from Germany.
The €500 note, reportedly so prized by criminals that it trades above its face value, is “used more for hiding things than buying them”, the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, said earlier this year. “It is used more to facilitate transactions that are not honest than to allow you and me to buy food to eat.”
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
ECB’s governing council votes to stop issuing the notes on the grounds
that they are too often used to finance crime
Jon Henley European affairs correspondent
Wednesday 4 May 2016 08.30 BST
The European Central Bank is phasing out the €500 (£400) note, nicknamed the “Bin Laden” of banknotes because of its associations with money-laundering and terror financing – and because while many people know what it looks like, few have ever seen one.
The ECB announced on Wednesday that the fuchsia-coloured bills, the highest denomination of the eurozone’s seven banknotes, would no longer be printed or distributed from 2018, on the grounds that they are too often used to finance crime.
The move, approved by the bank’s governing council meeting in Frankfurt, comes after months of mounting pressure from France – which has been working to clamp down on terrorist financing in the wake of last year’s bloody attacks in Paris – but equally stiff opposition from Germany.
The €500 note, reportedly so prized by criminals that it trades above its face value, is “used more for hiding things than buying them”, the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, said earlier this year. “It is used more to facilitate transactions that are not honest than to allow you and me to buy food to eat.”
[font size=1]-snip-[/font]
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/04/500-euro-banknote-could-be-scrapped-crime
