Have I opened all the "Memory Banks?"
AKA:
Member 01 : Ah, I remember the days when it was X.
Member 02 : I remember when it was Y
Member 03 : I'm so old I remember when we traded in goats!

(Now for the comments about some still DO)........

 

I find Optimum Traders usually has very good rates, and I use them exclusively.

 

This is not to do with the best rates, but about the peso notes being withdrawn for a later version. I received a Email which I never opened, stating this, it was, I presume a scam email, anybody had similiar Cheers, Stilo

 

The Philippines did start minting new supposedly harder to counterfit bills with the intention of retiring older bills. I think the new bills started in 2011 with 1k bills. Not exact date but somewhere around there. At some point the older bills may not be honored by retailers. It doesn't mean you can't still exchange the bills for new bills but the bar will become higher, having to do it at a bank. Philippine money is not like US money that can always be exchanged at it's face value no matter how old it is. I used to make sure my bills were 2013 and up by spending the older bills first, problem solved.

 

Every store I go in these days has a sign that the old bills are no longer honored and must be taken to the bank for exchange or they will be worthless (they actually say "no monetary value") as of Dec 31, 2016. So if anyone is not in country and has some old bills they better mail them to relatives to cash in.

 

I've been told and read the old bills are fully retired already and banks are currently collecting them up for destruction. Come Jan 2017 they are worthless and won't be honored. They are currently though still worth full face value and a business can't reject them as illegal tender (not that some business's may already be doing that).

I'd say start watching out towards Nov. if not before for anyone trying to hand you old bills. I also expect a lot of small business's in 2017 being fooled into taking old worthless currency. A lot of poorer and older locals are going to be losing out I bet come 2017.

On that note I better find one of those new currency signs sometime in the next number of months for my business to make sure we aren't taking in old bills come end of the year.

 

As a businessman, you should be keeping up on the rules regarding currency. Read where the Banko Sentral says:

You should not be accepting them but they can still be cashed at the bank. Read more at Old banknotes good up to December 31, 2015 | Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines

 

Optimum give a better exchange rate than the money exchanger at Lee plaza. I always look when shopping with wife.