OREANDA-NEWS. March 16, 2009. The Automated Telling Machines (ATMs) in Lithuania are being equipped with a popular in the world ink staining technology that degrades banknotes in case of ripping them out of an ATM, reported the press-centre of Bank of Lithuania.

In case of a robbery, all the banknotes in the ATM will be sprayed with special ink dye. The very first Lithuanian ATMs equipped with this security system will be using blue ink dye although in future there may be other colours too.

“People are advised not to accept such „coloured“ banknotes, since these may be illegally acquired banknotes. Private individuals will not be able to replace the ink stained banknotes with „clean“ ones either in the Bank of Lithuania or commercial banks, since such banknotes will be looked upon as illegally acquired ones; also, such cases should be immediately reported to the territorial city (region) Police Commissioner’s office”, Algimantas Sodeika, the head of the Monetary Expertise Unit under the Bank of Lithuania, said.

Sodeika added that Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda branches of the Bank of Lithuania will accept such discoloured banknotes only from commercial banks and institutions that use such ink dye in their operations.

The use of the security ink dye, a special banknote security measure, is in line with the provisions of the recently amended Rules for Establishing Compliance of the Currency of the Republic of Lithuania with Acceptability Features and Exchanging Worn and Damaged Currency. They are available on the website of the Bank of Lithuania. Some examples of degraded banknotes that are no longer fit for the use as a means of payment can be found there too.
The Bank of Lithuania is to issue a booklet on the banknote security measure using ink dye and provide the booklet to commercial bank branches to give to their clients.