The number of fake banknotes in Slovakia dropped in the second half of 2018. Overall, 699 fake euro banknotes were found, down by 9.7 percent compared with the first half of 2018. More than 91 percent of them were found in circulation, the TASR newswire reported.
Most Slovaks praise the euro Read more At the same time, the number of fake coins increased, according to the latest data from the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS), the country’s central bank.
The most frequent fake banknotes were the €50 note (47.1 percent) and the €100 note (28.9 percent). The quality of the fake banknotes is rather good. Despite this, it is easy to detect the fake ones even without using special technical tools.
Testing money
When it comes to banknotes, they are easy to distinguish by using a simple test – checking by touch, look and inclination to the light.
“The combination of these steps can reliably reveal the fake banknote,” said Martina Vráblik Solčanyiová, spokesperson for the NBS, as quoted by TASR.
In the second half of 2018, 679 fake coins were found compared with 570 coins in the first half of the year. The most frequent were those of the nominal value €2 (79.8 percent) and all were captured in circulation.
Use a magnet
The quality of the fake coins is also high. It is hard to reveal whether a coin is fake, especially when someone does not pay attention when getting cash, the NBS spokesperson explained. The easiest way to check suspicious coins is to use a magnet.
“Euro coins of the nominal value of €1 or €2 have a magnetic centre,” Vráblik Solčanyiová explained, as quoted by TASR.
All that is needed is to put a magnet near the centre of the coin and compare the magnetism with that of a real coin.
The overall look of the coin, its colour and the writing at the edge of the €2 coin are also important details.
