The design of the UK’s new £20 polymer note has been released by the Bank of England, featuring the artist JMW Turner.
It contains sophisticated security features that make it difficult to counterfeit and is expected to last at least 2.5 times longer than the current paper £20 notes - around five years - and stay in better condition during day-to-day use.
The note is the most commonly circulated in Britain, with two billion of them in the system. That is double the number of £10 notes and far greater than the number of £5 notes (396 million) and £50 notes (344 million). The popularity of the note is part of the reason for it also being the most likely to be forged. In the first half of this year, 88 per cent of detected banknote forgeries were £20 notes, the bank's statistics show.
The new £20 note will be the first to feature the signature of Sarah John, the bank's chief cashier, who said: "The new £20 is an important part of our commitment to providing banknotes that people can use with confidence.
"Our polymer notes are much harder to counterfeit and, with the £20 being our most common note, this marks a big step forward in our fight against counterfeiting."
The quote on the banknote, "Light is therefore colour," comes from an 1818 lecture by Turner at the Royal Academy, where he first exhibited at the age of 15. His signature is from his will, in which he bequeathed his work to the nation.
