The Bank of Ghana has begun circulating the upgraded GH¢50 denomination into the system. At a brief media launch in Accra, the Acting Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Henry Wampah, advised the general public to familiarise themselves with the new features on the upgraded GH¢50 denomination.

The upgraded GH¢50 Banknote has a more secured and technologically advanced public recognition feature called ‘’Spark’’, together with other features.

The Spark is in the form of a green cocoa pod located at the bottom right hand corner of the banknote.

When tilted, the cocoa pod changes colour progressively from green to blue and back to green. A beam of light rolls on the cocoa pod.

“You will observe that the Spark replaces the hologram on the old GH¢50 denomination”, Dr Wampah stressed.

The old banknote will run concurrently with the upgraded banknote and will be accepted as legal tender for the payment of goods and services until 30th September, 2012.

Thereafter the old GH¢50 denomination can only be exchanged at the Bank of Ghana or any bank in the country.

The decision to upgrade the GH¢50 denomination is to ensure that the security of the note is not compromised and also maintain its integrity by avoiding a general loss of confidence in the denomination.

The Bank of Ghana has also unveiled the educational materials on the upgraded banknote in the form of posters and flyers to launch the publicity campaign.  This has since been complemented with other multimedia advertisements.