Claim: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is introducing newly designed currency notes.
Fact: The State Bank of Pakistan is not introducing newly designed currency notes in Pakistan.
On 6th November 2021, 24NewsHD ran a ticker on TV followed by a story on their website that said, “The government has planned to introduce plastic currency in order to check the rampant circulation of fake currency in the country.”
Shortly afterwards, social media platforms were swarming with posts suggesting that the State Bank of Pakistan was introducing newly designed currency notes.
Soch Fact Check ran an extensive search using various tools and found that this post by a page called Lahore Lahore hai yar was the first to share images of the alleged new currency notes. . The post by the page did not categorically state that the notes were being introduced by the State Bank of Pakistan but instead said, “Pakistani Currency new design is introduced by Noor Ul Hassan student of Fine Arts Dep University of Peshawar in his research thesis. He is KP’s First & Pakistan’s 3rd designer who came up with such a brilliant idea.” While it is unclear whether Noor Ul Hassan is indeed the first in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and third in Pakistan to take up currency design as part of an academic thesis or otherwise, many posts that followed afterwards, like this, this and this associated the design with the State Bank.
Many pages ran the pictures without a caption but with misleading text such as, “Rebranding of Pakistan’s currency,” superimposed on them instead. Examples of such posts can be found here, here and here.
The State Bank of Pakistan issued an official statement on their Twitter account to deny the news and described the pictures as “fake”.
Conclusion: The State Bank of Pakistan has denied that it has plans to introduce newly designed. No such notes are being introduced in Pakistan. The reports and social media posts claiming otherwise are false.