Banknotes of the Swiss franc

Banknotes of the Swiss franc are issued by the Swiss National Bank in denominations of 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 1,000 Swiss francs.

The first banknotes in Switzerland were issued in 1825 by the Caisse de dépôt of the city of Bern.

During the 19th century the Cantons had the right of printing notes. Following the law of 8 March 1881 the Swiss National Bank had the exclusive right to issue banknotes in Switzerland. First notes were issued in 1907. Since then, eight series of Swiss franc notes have been printed, six of which have been released for use by the general public, and a new series is expected in 2016.

The second series of Swiss banknotes was issued between 1911 and 1914.

The third series of Swiss banknotes was printed in 1918; some of the notes were issued as war notes, while others were kept as reserve.

The fourth series of Swiss banknotes was printed in 1938 as a reserve series and was never issued.

The fifth series of Swiss banknotes was issued starting in 1957.

A seventh series of Swiss banknotes was designed and printed in 1984, in parallel with the sixth series, but was never released. It formed the reserve series, to be released, for example, if the current series would suddenly become widely counterfeited. At first, almost no information was released on the series for security reasons, except for small fragments. However, after the eighth series was released, it was decided to improve the security features of the current series rather than develop a new reserve series. The details of the seventh series were later released, while the actual banknotes were destroyed. The designers were Roger Pfund and Elisabeth Pfund. They had originally won the competition for the design of the sixth series, but since the Swiss National Bank decided to use the design by Ernst and Ursula Hiestand instead, the Pfunds were charged with the design of the reserve series.

The eighth series of Swiss franc banknotes, designed by Jörg Zintzmeyer, entered circulation in 1995.

In 2005, the Swiss National Bank held a competition to determine the design of the next series of banknotes. The competition was won by Manuel Krebs, but his designs, which include depictions of blood cells and embryos, were met with sufficient opposition from the general public as to discourage the bank from going forward with them. As a result, the ninth series of Swiss franc banknotes will be based on designs by second place finalist Manuela Pfrunder. The series was scheduled to be issued around 2010 but was delayed to 2015 due to technical problems in the production. The new 50 franc banknote was issued on April 12, 2016.

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Wikipedia