Queen Elizabeth is featured on several currencies. Now what?
Queen Elizabeth II has been depicted on British banknotes and coins for decades. Her portrait also has been featured on currencies in dozens of other places around the world, in a reminder of the British empire’s colonial reach.
So what happens next after her death this week? It will take time for the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries to swap out the monarchs on their money.
Here’s a look at what is next for the paper cash featuring the late queen:
Switching monarchs
The queen’s portrait on British notes and coins is expected to be replaced by a likeness of the new King Charles III, but it won’t be immediate.
“Current banknotes featuring the image of Her Majesty The Queen will continue to be legal tender,” the Bank of England said. An announcement on existing paper money issued by the U.K.’s central bank will be made after the official 10-day mourning period has ended, it said.
The Royal Mint, which is the official maker of British coins, said all coins with her portrait “remain legal tender and in circulation,” with more information to come later.
“As we respect this period of respectful mourning, we continue to strike coins as usual,” the Royal Mint said on its website.
With 4.7 billion U.K. banknotes worth 82 billion pounds ($95 billion) in circulation and about 29 billion coins, British money bearing the queen’s image will likely be in circulation for years.
“Rather than all of the current coins and notes being handed in, the process will be a gradual one and many of the coins featuring portraits of Queen Elizabeth II will remain in circulation for many years to come,” according to Coin Expert, a British coin research website.
After Charles takes the crown at his coronation, a new portrait will need to be taken to use on redesigned notes and coins, the website said.
Coins featuring him will show him facing to the left, replacing the queen’s rightward gaze in line with tradition dating to the 17th century. It dictates monarchs be shown in profile and in opposite direction to their predecessors.
What about other countries?
Other nations’ currencies that feature the queen — from Australian, Canadian and Belizean dollars — also will be updated with the new monarch, but the process could take longer, because “it is much easier to enforce a new design in the country where it originates, rather than in other countries where different jurisdiction may take place,” the Coin Expert website said.
The Bank of Canada said its current $20 banknote, made of synthetic polymer, is designed “to circulate for years to come.”
“There is no legislative requirement to change the design within a prescribed period when the Monarch changes,” the Bank of Canada said.
In general, when a new portrait subject is chosen for Canadian money, the process begins with drawing up a fresh design, and a new note is ready to be issued “a few years later,” the bank said.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand said it will issue all of its stock of coins depicting the queen before new ones go out with Charles’ image. The queen also is featured on the $20 bill, which is made “infrequently” and there is no “plan to destroy stock or shorten the life of existing banknotes just because they show the Queen,” the bank said.
“It will be several years before we need to introduce coins featuring King Charles the Third, and longer until stocks of $20 notes are exhausted,” it added.
The queen’s currency
She first appeared on money when she was still a princess. That was in 1935, when Canada’s $20 bill featured 8-year-old Princess Elizabeth, whose grandfather King George V was then the monarch, as part of a new series of notes.
Canadian $20 bills were updated with a new portrait of the queen in 1954, a year after her coronation, and her portrait also started appearing on other currencies around the world, mainly British colonies and Commonwealth countries.
British bills didn’t get her image until 1960 — seven years after her coronation. That’s when the Bank of England was granted permission to use her likeness on paper money, starting with the 1-pound note, though the formal and regal image was criticized for being too severe and unrealistic.
She became the first monarch to be depicted on British banknotes. British coins, meanwhile, have featured kings and queens for more than 1,000 years.
Currencies outside the UK
At one time, Queen Elizabeth II appeared on at least 33 different currencies, more than any other monarch, an achievement noted by Guinness World Records.
Her image is still featured on money in places where she remains a beloved figure, such as Canada, and continue to incorporate the
Union Jack into their flags, like Australia and New Zealand.
She’s also found on notes and coins issued by the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, the monetary authority for a group of small nations including Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Other places have long stopped putting her face on their currency. After Jamaica gained independence from Britain in 1962, its central bank replaced the queen on paper notes with portraits of national heroes such as Marcus Garvey.
Notes in the Seychelles now feature local wildlife instead of the queen. Bermuda did a similar revamp, though the queen retains a minor position on bills. Trinidad and Tobago swapped in a coat of arms after it became a republic.
Hong Kong dollars issued after Britain handed its colony back to Beijing in 1997 feature Chinese dragons and skyscrapers on the Asian financial center’s skyline.
Kelvin Chan is a business writer with Associated Press
Climate change is a topic that comes up no matter what we’re discussing, be it food or fashion, travel or health. It affects us all, which means it needs to be given priority if we want the future to be brighter than our past. Ryan Hamilton understands this all too well, which is why he’s dedicated his Master’s thesis to aiding educators in teaching it and students in visualising its outcomes.
“EcoXR is a tablet application that combines two of the fastest-growing technologies in the world, namely virtual reality [VR] and augmented reality [AR],” Ryan explains. “The idea behind the app, which can be used on a simple tablet, is to enhance the learnability of climate change through a highly-immersive experience.”
The app comes with two distinct sections. One of them uses VR and sees users enter a virtual, modern home where they have a series of tasks to perform. These include turning off taps, switching off lights and adjusting the temperature on an air-conditioning unit.
The other section uses AR to explore three virtual ecosystems and how climate change is reshaping them. These are the Arctic ecosystem, where melting ice caps are resulting in the decline of glacial environments; a Field and Forests ecosystem, where water bodies are drying up, endangering food sources for wild animals and leaving scarce opportunities for productive farming and a Sea Coast ecosystem, where sea levels are rising, wreaking havoc on coastal communities.
“These two realities are intertwined in the app, with the future state of each ecosystem changing based on the user’s efforts at ‘fixing’ critical environmental issues in their virtual home.”
But the app goes a step further. It explains the process behind what is happening through short and easy-tounderstand texts compiled from information published in reputable scientific journals and via statistics released by NASA and the European Commission, among others.
“The ultimate aim of EcoXR is to aid youths and adults understand how each action, no matter how small, can impact our environment,” Ryan asserts.
To create such an app, Ryan needed to merge various disciplines. On the one hand, there was the technological side of the process. This required him to be knowledgeable in both VR and AR. But he also needed to look into how tablet sensors work and how three-dimensional elements could be assembled to showcase “living” ecosystems. On the other, there was the pedagogical element (the method of teaching), which meant Ryan had to ensure that the app was imparting information in a way that students could learn from it.
“Understanding how climate change is taught was an obvious first step in this process. To ensure I was on the right track, I contacted the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development and a foreign start-up that focuses on climate change education to find out what’s already on the market and what gaps EcoXR could fill.
“Then I looked at the pedagogy of climate change and how the app performed that role. When the first version of the app was completed, I asked educators who teach climate change as part of their syllabus to test it.”
These educators were also invited to fill out a system usability scale (SUS) questionnaire before participating in one-on-one interviews where they voiced their likes, dislikes and proposed amendments. This led to suggestions for future developments, including the importance and effectiveness of having consistent and brief informational areas.
“I have been working on this application since August 2020 now, and I’m happy most educators loved the idea and thought it would be helpful in classrooms or educational museums.
“I hope to keep working on the app or find someone else who will take over… From their suggestions, we’ve already pinpointed some of the work that now needs to take place including better handling of the tablet’s working memory [RAM] to ensure a smoother experience for learners.”
We stand behind this call, especially since such a project shows how combining technologies can aid in teaching such a subject. After all, what better way is there to raise awareness about a topic like climate change than through the education of future generations?
Ryan Hiliton’s work was done
under the supervision of Dr Peter Xuereb from the Faculty of ICT, University of Malta. Articles on this work have
been published on https://ictprojects.mt/ and
https://issuu.com/ict.um
of China towards EU and international standards in IPR protection.”
Why China?
Mainland China is one of the EU's key trading partners and IPR are a defining factor of EU businesses generating this trade.
In 2021, China was the third largest partner for the EU’s exports of goods (10.2%), with EU companies exporting a volume of € 223.4bn to China, trading mainly machinery and vehicles (52% of exports to China), other manufactured goods (20%) and chemicals (15%). The three largest exporters to China in the EU were Germany, France and the Netherlands.
The EU’s engagement with China on trade is guided by the 2019 EU Strategic Outlook, which promotes reciprocity, a level playing field and fair competition.
Challenges
Significant legislative progress has been made in recent years. The dialogue mechanisms, engagement of large stakeholders’ networks and IP Key China have vastly contributed to that. In many areas, IPR protection and enforcement is still not sufficiently effective and challenges such as lack of transparency and insufficient enforcement of IPRs remain. Substantial concerns exist in particular regarding the interpretation of patentability requirements, the lack of sufficient legal protection against trade mark applications made in bad faith and the protection provided for trade secrets. An emerging concern is ensuring fair and non-discriminating treatment in competition cases opened against foreign rightsholders .
The future
The next phase of the IP Key China project will look at advancing convergence of Chinese, EU and international standards in IPR protection, with greater focus on law enforcement aspects. Attention will also be paid to strengthening partnerships and strategic engagement with businesses operating in China, as well as industry associations. Future efforts will also aim at ensuring a greater involvement of sectoral institutions in the EU and its member states in peer-to-peer exchanges with their Chinese counterparts on topics of mutual interest.