Decision of the European Central Bank of 16 September 2010 on the authenticity and fitness checking and recirculation of euro banknotes (ECB/2010/14) (2010/597/EU)

• Celex Number: 02010D0014-20120921
• Coming into Force: 21 September 2012
• ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dec/2010/597/2012-09-21
• Published date: 21 September 2012
• Date: 21 September 2012
• Court: Provisional data

2010D0014 — EN — 21.09.2012 — 001.001

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This document is meant purely as a documentation tool and the institutions do not assume any liability for its contents

►B DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK of 16 September 2010 on the authenticity and fitness checking and recirculation of euro banknotes (ECB/2010/14) (2010/597/EU) (OJ L 267, 9.10.2010, p.1)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
►M1	DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK of 7 September 2012	L 253	19	20.9.2012

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DECISION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK

of 16 September 2010

on the authenticity and fitness checking and recirculation of euro banknotes

(ECB/2010/14)

(2010/597/EU)

THE GOVERNING COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 128(1) thereof,

Having regard to the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank (hereinafter the Statute of the ESCB), and in particular Article 16 thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Article 128(1) of the Treaty and Article 16 of the Statute of the ESCB provide that the European Central Bank (ECB) has the exclusive right to authorise the issue of euro banknotes within the Union. This right includes the competence to take measures to protect the integrity of euro banknotes as a means of payment.

(2) To protect the integrity of euro banknotes and enable a proper detection of counterfeits, euro banknotes in circulation must be maintained in good condition to ensure that they can be easily and reliably checked for genuineness, and therefore euro banknotes must be checked for fitness. Furthermore, suspect counterfeit euro banknotes must be quickly detected and handed over to the competent national authorities.

(3) Article 6 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001 of 28 June 2001 laying down measures necessary for the protection of the euro against counterfeiting ( 1 ) originally obliged credit and other relevant institutions to withdraw from circulation all euro banknotes received by them which they know or have sufficient reason to believe to be counterfeit.

(4) To establish harmonised standards on euro banknote recirculation, in 2005 the ECB published the banknote recycling framework which laid down common rules and procedures on authenticity and fitness checking of euro banknotes ( 2 ), including operational standards for banknote handling machines. Subsequently, the ECB adopted common procedures for the testing of banknote handling machines by NCBs.

(5) Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001 has been amended ( 3 ) to the effect that the scope of its addressees has been extended and that they are now obliged to ensure that euro banknotes they have received and which they intend to put back into circulation are checked for authenticity and that counterfeits are detected. In this respect Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001 stipulates that, for euro notes, this check shall be carried out in line with the procedures defined by the ECB. It is therefore appropriate to lay down those procedures in a legal act.

(6) Without prejudice to the Member States’ competence to establish sanctions against the institutions referred to in Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001 that fail to discharge their obligations thereunder, the Eurosystem must be able to take appropriate administrative measures to ensure that the procedures defined by the ECB are complied with and that the rules and procedures established under this Decision are not circumvented with the consequent risk of counterfeit and unfit banknotes not being detected or being put back into circulation,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:

Article 1

Scope

This Decision lays down common rules and procedures on the authenticity and fitness checking and recirculation of euro banknotes under Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Decision:

1. ‘NCB’ means the national central bank of a Member State whose currency is the euro.

2. ‘Cash handlers’ means the institutions and economic agents referred to in Article 6(1) of Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001.

3. ‘Recirculation’ means the action, by cash handlers, of putting back into circulation, directly or indirectly, euro banknotes that they have received, either from the public as payment or as a deposit in a bank account, or from another cash handler.

4. ‘Banknote handling machine’ means a customer-operated or staff-operated machine as defined in Annex I.

5. ‘Type of banknote handling machine’ means a banknote handling machine that can be distinguished from other banknote handling machines as described in Annex I.

6. ‘Common test procedures’ means the test procedures, as specified by the ECB, to be applied by NCBs in order to test types of banknote handling machine.

7. ‘Trained staff members’ means employees of cash handlers who have: (a) knowledge of the different public security features of euro banknotes, as specified and published by the Eurosystem, and the ability to check them; and (b) knowledge of the sorting criteria listed in Annex IIIb and the ability to check euro banknotes in accordance with them.

8. ‘Counterfeit euro banknotes’ means counterfeit banknotes as defined in Article 2(a) of Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001.

9. ‘Cash dispenser’ means a self-service machine which, through the use of a bank card or other means, dispenses euro banknotes to the public, debiting a bank account, such as an automated teller machine (ATM) dispensing cash. Self-checkout terminals (SCoTs) with which the public can pay for goods or services either by bank card, cash or other payment instruments, having a cash-withdrawal function, are also considered cash dispensers.

10. ‘Competent national authorities’ means authorities as defined in Article 2(b) of Regulation (EC) No 1338/2001.

11. ‘Unfit euro banknotes’ means euro banknotes which are evaluated as unsuitable for recirculation following the fitness checking referred to in Article 6.

12. ‘Credit institution’ means a credit institution as defined in Article 4(1)(a) of Directive 2006/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions ( 4 ).

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13. ‘euro banknotes’ means those banknotes complying with the requirements of Decision ECB/2003/4 ( 5 ) or any legal act replacing or complementing that Decision and with the technical specifications laid down by the Governing Council.

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Article 3

General principles

1. The obligation of cash handlers to check euro banknotes for authenticity and fitness shall be carried out in line with procedures laid down in this Decision.

2. If two or more cash handlers are involved in the recirculation of the same euro banknotes, the cash handler responsible for the authenticity and fitness checking of these euro banknotes shall be designated in accordance with national regulations or, in the absence of such regulations, in contractual arrangements between the relevant cash handlers.

3. The authenticity and fitness checking shall be carried out either by a type of banknote handling machine successfully tested by an NCB, or manually by a trained staff member.

4. Euro banknotes may only be recirculated via customer-operated machines or cash dispensers if they have been checked for authenticity and fitness by a type of banknote handling machine successfully tested by an NCB and classified as genuine and fit. However, this requirement shall not apply to euro banknotes that have been delivered directly to a cash handler by an NCB or by another cash handler that has already checked the euro banknotes for authenticity and fitness in this manner.

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5. Staff-operated machines, when used for the purpose of authenticity and fitness checking, and customer-operated machines may only be put into operation by cash handlers if they have been successfully tested by an NCB and listed on the ECB’s website as laid down in Article 9(2). The machines shall be used only for the denominations and series of euro banknotes listed on the ECB’s website for the corresponding machines, with the standard factory settings, including any updates thereof, that have been successfully tested unless stricter settings are agreed between the NCB and the cash handler.

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6. Euro banknotes which have been checked for authenticity and fitness and classified as genuine and fit by trained staff members but not by a type of banknote handling machine successfully tested by an NCB may only be recirculated over the counter.

7. This Decision shall not apply to the authenticity and fitness checking of euro banknotes carried out by NCBs.

Article 4

Classification and treatment of euro banknotes by banknote handling machines

1. Euro banknotes checked by a customer-operated machine shall be classified and treated in accordance with Annex IIa.

2. Euro banknotes checked by a staff-operated machine shall be classified and treated in accordance with Annex IIb.

Article 5

Detection of counterfeit euro banknotes

Banknotes that are not authenticated as genuine euro banknotes following classification carried out in accordance with Annex IIa or IIb or following manual authenticity checking by a trained staff member shall immediately, in line with national regulations and in any case within a maximum of 20 working days, be handed over by cash handlers to the competent national authorities.

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Article 6

Detection of unfit euro banknotes

1. Manual fitness checking shall be carried out in accordance with the minimum standards laid down in Annex III.

2. Automated fitness checking shall be carried out by a successfully tested banknote handling machine according to the...