Customers of QNB, QIB, HSBC and CB of Qatar can now deposit the new denominations of Qatari riyals in deposit machines.

Citizens and residents of Qatar will now be able to deposit new banknotes at ATMs and cash deposit machines belonging to specific banks that have announced an upgrade to their services.

“QNB’s ATMs now accept the new and old Qatari riyal notes for cash deposit“ said QNB in a tweet on Thursday.

Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB) has also made a similar announcement; however, the bank said not all of its machines accept the new currency notes.

“All new Qatari currency notes are now accepted in most of QIB Deposit Machines,” QIB informed its customers via text message.

Customers can deposit up to 30 notes per transaction while the daily cash deposit limit is set at QR50,000. 

On Twitter, QIB shared the locations of 28 deposit machines that accept the new currency notes.

The Doha News team reached out to HSBC which confirmed only some machines are accepting the new notes.

Commercial Bank of Qatar (CBQ) is also on the list of banks that have started accepting the new notes, though it told Doha News that customers will not be able to deposit the 500 note just yet. All its machines, except those at the Medina Central branch, have been updated.  

Meanwhile, all other banks in Qatar have yet to announce whether they have upgraded  their deposit machines to accept new notes.

The Qatar Central Bank (QCB) introduced on December 18 new banknotes but customers were unable to deposit any in the machines. 

Read more: New year, new money

That is because the banks were required to upgrade their machines in order to sort old notes and identify new ones, all of which are different in terms of design and features. 

The high-security features and new designs make the new notes safe and unidentifiable by any machine that is not updated.

As part of the new notes, a QR200 bill has also come into circulation for the first time in Qatar. 

On December 13, QCB announced the new designs of the fifth issue of the Qatari riyal bills.

According to officials, those who still hold the current riyal banknotes are allowed to exchange them from the Central Bank for a period of 10 years.

The new designs look drastically different, with the 500-riyal bill looking similar to the old, pink 50-riyal banknote.

In a more modern approach, the new bills feature Qatar’s most recent landmarks, including the Qatar National Museum and the Al-Thumama stadium, which is set to become the venue for some of the 2022 World Cup matches.

The current notes were unveiled back in 2003, and introduced holographic security threads and plastic foil see-through windows.

The new banknotes have 62 security features, including a barcode.

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