KARACHI/RAWALPINDI /Multan - The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will announce its monetary policy for next two months on May 25. The central bank will announce this policy through a statement, instead of press conference, said a SBP statement on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the SBP has announced that it will issue fresh currency notes to general public from June 1 to exchange with old ones for Eid-ul-Fitr celebrations.

The SBP in collaboration with Pakistan Banks Association (PBA) set up SMS short code 8877 for issuing fresh currency notes, which will be issued during June 1 to 14.

According to a notification issued here, a person intending to get new currency notes would send message to 8877 along with his CNIC number and branch code of selected bank. The system will respond with sending transaction number and branch address. Charges of sending an SMS to 8877 are Rs 15 (plus tax). Under the SMS service, each CNIC number and mobile phone number can only be used once. No transaction code will be issued to senders if they send same CNIC/smart card number from different mobile numbers or addresses.

A help desk has also been established at (021)-111-008-877 to entertain queries/complaints of general public.

The subscriber would have to present his original CNIC at the time of receiving fresh currency notes. Each subscriber can exchange and get three packets of Rs10, and each package of Rs50 and Rs100. This facility will be available at 1,535 commercial bank branches and SBP offices located in 132 cities.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Manager State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Multan Aftab Ahmad said that currency authentication machines were operational in 30 cities currently, and the facility would be available all over the country from next fiscal year.

While addressing a seminar, organised by the SBP on how to check authenticity of the currency notes, he said that those dealing in fake currency notes have not yet copied all the security features of a genuine currency note. But they are still able to deceive ordinary people, he added.

The SBP Multan official said that banks and business community were acquiring machine authenticating system. The system that was operational in 30 cities of the country would be available all over the country from the beginning of next fiscal year 2018-19, he added.

He said that the cash officers who accept fake currency notes are burdened with a fine double the value of that currency note.

He advised the people to be careful while accepting cash. There are some security features of genuine currency notes which people can memorise by virtue of attention and practice and that is how people can keep themselves safe against fraudsters. He said that SBP was ready to give guidelines to any organization on how to identify fake currency notes.