Central Bank Planning ¢20.000 and ¢50.000 Notes
What happens to those colones notes that are just too worn out? The Banco Central de Costa Rica (BCCR) makes confetti out of them, using a powerful shredder that in minutes can turn hundreds of millions of colones notes into small pieces of worthless paper confetti.

The BCCR generally destroys notes after they have been in circulation on average for four years, as banks receiving the old and worn out notes put them aside to trade for new ones issued by the Central Bank.

BCCR treasurer, Ricardo Rodríguez, said that every two months on average, the Central Bank destroys some 2.4 million notes that are pulled from circulation for a number of reasons, including worn out, dirty and filled with messages.

The BCCR official added that the cost of replacing the worn out bills costs the Central Bank some us$2 million dollars a year. Each bill that is replaced costs, on average, ¢20 colones to produce.

The official also added that soon the Central Bank will be issuing ¢20.000 and ¢50.000 notes, notes that will be closely equal to us$50 and us$100 dollars. Rodríguez said that the project is still in the early stages and that it would be at least two years before it can become a reality.

Currently the highest denomination the BCCR prints is ¢10.000 colones, in addition to the ¢5.000, ¢2.000 and ¢1.000 notes. The BCCR stopped printing ¢500 and ¢100 colones notes some time ago, replacing them with coins. Lower denomination notes are now collector items.