Commemorative Bangladeshi banknote featuring PM Hasina misleadingly shared as 'legal tender'

A photo of a commemorative banknote printed in Bangladesh featuring Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been shared repeatedly in Facebook posts that misleadingly suggested it was genuine currency. However, the note was not legal tender. The South Asian country's banknotes have not historically included the portraits of serving prime ministers.

"New 50 taka note (0.46 dollars). How does it look?" read the caption of a Bengali-language Facebook post alongside a photo showing both sides of a currency note on September 3, 2023.

A portrait of Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was printed on one side of the note, while an image of a Dhaka metro train was printed on the opposite side.

The text overlaid on the banknote said in Bengali and English "Bangladesh Bank: Fifty Taka" in large text. In smaller text, the phrase "Commemorative note" was written, but it was not legible in some posts.

Since Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan in 1971 following a bloody war of secession, the South Asian country's banknotes have not historically included the portraits of serving prime ministers.

Hasina's father, independence hero Sheikh Mujib, has to date been the only Bangladeshi leader to feature on the nation's banknotes.

Hasina was sworn in for her fifth term in January after her ruling Awami League party won nearly three-quarters of elected seats in parliament following controversial elections boycotted by the opposition.

Comments from some Facebook users indicated they believed the image showed legal tender.

One user wrote: "The note is good, but the photo (the portrait of Sheikh Hasina) should not be included."

Another person commented: "The note will be rejected if another party comes into power."

The same image continued to circulate online alongside a similar misleading claim in multiple Facebook posts as recently as March this year, including here and here.

However, the image showed a commemorative note, not real currency.

Metro railway launch

A Google reverse image search led to the same photo published in an article titled "Tk 50 commemorative note for metro rail launch" by The Daily Star, a Bangladeshi newspaper, on December 27, 2022 (archive link).

According to the report, the Bangladesh Bank printed a commemorative 50 taka note (0.46 dollars) to mark the launch of the South Asian country’s first metro railway.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the photo shared in the misleading post (left) and the photo published by The Daily Star (right):

Bangladesh Bank, the country's central bank as well as the regulator of its banking sector, often prints commemorative notes to mark historic events.

The note featuring Hasina can be seen on its website, as highlighted by AFP in red below (archived link):

The bank last printed 50 taka notes featuring Sheikh Mujibur on December 15, 2019 according to its website (archive link). It can be seen below: