President Jacob Zuma made a very cool announcement this weekend on the 22nd anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison. Towards the end of this year South Africa will get a series of new bank notes which will have Madiba’s image as the main illustration instead of the animals we’ve come to know.

In addition to that, the new notes would have enhanced security features, would be easier for blind or partially sighted people to identify and would be machine-readable.

At a presentation at the SA Reserve Bank, along with the bank’s governor, Gill Marcus and Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan Zuma said the use of Mandela’s image was part of the recognition of the former’s role in the fight against apartheid, the liberation of the country and that he was recognized as a leader around the world.

This humble gesture expresses our gratitude for a life spent in the service of this country.

The redesign is being accompanied by a significant recapitalisation of the South African Note Company (SABN), which is being modernised with state of the art printing equipment. The upgrading also entails significant training and up-skilling of the SABN staff.

These images were grabbed from the powerpoint presentation. A set of high-quality images are yet to be released to the media by the SABN:

[Source: South African Reserve Bank]