New €100 and €200 notes come into circulation to combat money laundering

New €100 and €200 notes will come into circulation across Europe on Tuesday in a bid to combat counterfeiting and money laundering.

The €100 and €200 notes are the latest new banknotes to be released as part of the Europa Series by the European Central Bank, which first began updating euro bills with a new of €5 note in 2013.

New €10, €20 and €50 notes have also been released.

The new notes are taller than the original €100 and €200 notes meaning they can be more easily processed by machines.

The banknotes also feature enhanced security features – not visible to the naked eye – which can be processed and authenticated more quickly.

They also have an enhanced "emerald number" – a shiny number which changes colour from green to blue.

While an emerald number itself is present on all the other notes of the Europa series, this enhanced version also shows € symbols inside the numerals.

In the second half of 2018 over 560,000 counterfeit bank notes were withdrawn from circulation, with €20 and €50 notes being the most counterfeited banknotes – accounting for over 80% of all counterfeits.

There are now currently 22 billion euro banknotes in circulation, with a total value of around €1.2 trillion.

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