Viral Claim Showing Pictures of the New Plastic Banknotes Is AI-Generated

We could not find any credible reports to support the claim.

Images falsely claiming to show the new plastic banknotes are going viral on the internet. 

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

Images of currency notes are being shared on the internet, claiming to show the design of the new plastic notes that will replace the paper notes.

• The posts claim that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced this new decision, and the pictures show the design of the new banknotes. One user noted this decision intends to remove Mahatma Gandhi from the currency notes.

An archived version of this claim can be found here.

(Source: X/Screenshot)

(Archives of more claims can be seen here and here.)

Is it true?: No, the claim does not show the design of the new plastic notes that the RBI has released.

How did we find out?: We could not find any official RBI report showing the design of the new plastic notes, which the claim suggested would replace the paper notes.

• We ran a keyword search and found a report by the Business Standard, which states that the RBI is planning to introduce polymer banknotes to meet the growing demand for currency notes.

• They also reported that while the RBI is planning on introducing plastic notes, paper notes won't be replaced immediately.

The news report by Business Standard. 

(Source: Business Standard/Screenshot)

• None of the articles that reported the introduction of polymer notes has mentioned or included the design of the new banknotes.

• The articles haven't suggested that Mahatma Gandhi will be removed from the banknotes either.

• We ran the image through Sightengine, an AI-detection tool, which confirmed that the image is 99 percent likely to be generated by AI.

Here is the result obtained on Sightengine. 

(Source: Sightengine/Screenshot)

The image shows the signature of former RBI governor, Shaktikanta Das. We compared it with the signature on the currency notes printed during his tenure and found out that they don't match.

The comparison of the signatures. 

(Source:Wikimedia commons/Screenshot)

Conclusion: A viral claim which is being shared to show pictures of the new plastic banknotes is fake.

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