Analytics, Banks, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Legislation

Latvia, as well as Estonia, Cyprus, Finland, Slovakia and Lithuania, is among EU member states with the lowest number of counterfeit coins and banknotes per capita.

In the first half of this year 796 coins and banknotes, including 140 coins and 656 banknotes were sent to the Bank of Latvia for inspections and detected as counterfeit. In the first half of 2016 this number was 726, including 133 coins and 593 banknotes. In 2016 in total of 1,577 coins and banknotes were detected as counterfeit, including 300 coins and 1,277 banknotes.

Fake 50-euro banknotes (441 counterfeit cases), 20-euro banknotes (163) and two-euro coins (110) were the most widespread counterfeit units of money in Latvia last year.

The European Central Bank (ECB) reported that 331,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were withdrawn from circulation in the first half of 2017 compared to 353,000 counterfeits in the respective period last year.

ECB said that the number of counterfeits remains very low compared with the number of genuine banknotes in circulation, which has risen steadily, at rates above GDP growth, since they were introduced. In 2016, for instance, the number and value of euro banknotes in circulation grew by around 7% and 3.9% respectively. There are now over 20 billion euro banknotes in circulation, with a total value of more than EUR 1.1 trillion.