GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The Cen­tral Bank has ad­vised that it will soon pub­lish the stip­u­lat­ed guide­lines to fa­cil­i­tate the ex­change of the pa­per notes for the new poly­mer bills with­in the pe­ri­od of three months af­ter the dead­line date of De­cem­ber 31, 2019.

In an up­dat­ed ad­vi­so­ry is­sued yes­ter­day, the Cen­tral Bank re­it­er­at­ed that it must be sat­is­fied that the fail­ure to present the notes for re­demp­tion pri­or to the dead­line date re­sult­ed from cir­cum­stances be­yond the con­trol of the true own­er of the notes or that there was some oth­er good or suf­fi­cient rea­son for the fail­ure to present the notes.

“Ex­am­ples of what con­sti­tutes good and suf­fi­cient rea­son will be pub­lished in due course and would in­clude spe­cif­ic sit­u­a­tions of per­sons who pro­vide ac­cept­able ev­i­dence of be­ing out of Trinidad and To­ba­go dur­ing the pe­ri­od De­cem­ber 9, 2019 and De­cem­ber 31, 2019, and thus un­able to be phys­i­cal­ly present in the coun­try dur­ing that pe­ri­od to de­posit the pa­per notes or ex­change the pa­per notes for the new poly­mer notes,” the bank said.

It al­so ad­vised peo­ple what to do if they do not have a bank ac­count and have more than $10,000 in $100 pa­per notes.

“You may ex­change your pa­per notes for the poly­mer notes at the Cen­tral Bank on pro­duc­tion of one form of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion­ca­tion, proof of ad­dress and source of funds de­c­la­ra­tion dur­ing 8 am to12 noon from Mon­day De­cem­ber 9 to Wednes­day De­cem­ber 11, 2019.

“On week­days, from Thurs­day De­cem­ber 12 to Tues­day De­cem­ber 31, 2019 (ex­cept on pub­lic hol­i­days i.e Wednes­day De­cem­ber 25 and Thurs­day De­cem­ber 26) the hours will be 8 am to 3 pm,” the bank said.

It re­mind­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic that the pa­per note will cease to be le­gal ten­der on De­cem­ber 31, 2019.

“By the end of the year you should de­posit the notes at a com­mer­cial bank or oth­er de­posit-tak­ing fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion, spend them, or ex­change them for oth­er de­nom­i­na­tions or for the new $100 poly­mer notes,” the Cen­tral Bank ad­vised.