SAMA starts withdrawing SR1 notes from market

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) will start withdrawing SR1 banknotes from the market from Thursday, SAMA announced on its website on Wednesday.

The SR1 banknotes will be replaced with one-riyal coins.

The SR1 banknotes will, however, remain in circulation until these are withdrawn from trading in accordance with a specific time plan, the SAMA announcement said.

The SR1 banknote accounts for 49 percent of the volume of traded cash, as it is often dealt between people and rarely deposited into banks, a section of the Arabic media quoted an official as saying.

In December 2016, SAMA unveiled the sixth issue of Saudi currency, including the new one-riyal and two-riyal coins, in addition to coins in the denominations of 50 halalah, 25 halalah, 10 halalah, 5 halalah and one halalah.

The one-riyal coin has on its obverse a portrait of King Salman in silver in the center. On the right side, the name and title of the King (Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) are engraved in a golden frame, and on the left there is a plant motif encompassing the Kingdom’s national emblem.

On the reverse side, the coin denomination (SR1) is written in the center as a numeral in silver with the denomination in Arabic letters on the top and in English at the bottom. On the right side, there is a golden frame engraved with the Kingdom’s full name, and on the left there is a plant motif encompassing the Kingdom’s national emblem. The Hijri year (1438) is engraved at the top and the Gregorian year (2016) engraved at the bottom.