When a $100 bill is tendered in a fast food (QSR) environment, the cashier freaks out a bit and calls the manager over to inspect it.  He or she gets a bit nervous as they go about looking it over, holding the bill up to the light, not quite sure what they are looking for.   With profit margins being so narrow in quick serve restaurants there is not a whole room for error in accepting a phony bill – particularly a $100.  If they are further along in training they may swipe the bill with one of those iodine ‘counterfeit’ pens.  There is a slight sigh and a quick nod to the cashier to accept the bill.  Other fast food establishments may refuse to accept the $100 bill as a policy, which is a whole other subject. 

The government has announced that a new $100 bill will be unveiled and circulated in February, 2011.  The new currency will sport a new look and contain heightened counterfeit measures including two new features, a 3-D Security Ribbon and the Bell in Inkwell. 

The blue 3-D Security Ribbon on the front of the new $100 bill contains imagines of bells and 100s that move and change from one to the other as the bill is tilted back and forth.

The Bell in the Inkwell is another anti-counterfeit feature.   The bell changes color from copper to green when the bill is tilted, an effect that makes the bell seem to appear and disappear within the inkwell. 

The new design for the $100 bill retains previous security features, including the portrait watermark of Benjamin Franklin, the vertical security thread and the color shifting numeral 100.    More information is available on the government’s website:  http://www.newmoney.gov, along with training and instructional material that can be downloaded for free.  The website also contains information on the security features on all denominations of U.S. currency.

 With a little formal training on security features of US currency, your staff may be more productive in cash transactions with less freaking out – even when presented with a $100 bill. It will save you time and money too; and less anxiety.

Did you know?...  There are 6.5 billion $100 notes in circulation and the Federal Reserve Board estimates that up to two-thirds of those notes circulate outside the U.S.  It makes me go “Hmmmmm?”