Hungarian Forint – Banknote History

Hungary is located in central Europe. Due to its central location it has been part of many empires and has taken part in historic events. It was involved in WW1 and WW2 and was even a satellite state of the USSR. The official currency is the Hungarian Forint and it dates back to the 19th century. The Forint was used during the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but, stopped. It was eventually brought back into circulation in 1946. The refreshed currency replaced the Pengo which was useless due to mass hyperinflation. It had the highest denomination currency in the world. A short time later after the release of the 100 Million B. Pengo, the Forint begins to circulate.

Reintroduction of the Forint

The first Forint banknotes introduced in 1946 only circulated for a year before they were redesigned and reprinted. They originally came in the denominations of 10 and 100 Forint. They had a traditional design of the era but, there were a lot of counterfeits due to their poor printing quality. In 1947 the new redesigned Forint banknote series came out. They came in denominations of 10, 20 and 100. They followed the same design and featured images of notable figures on the front. The design stayed relatively the same and higher denominations were kept getting introduced every so while.

In 1997 a new banknote series beging to circulate. They continued with the design of large images of notable people on the front as with previous generations but, they were more bright and colorful. Also they featured new modern security features to keep up with counterfeiting. This design is still in use today. The denominations are also larger. The largest denomination in circulation right now is 20,000 Forint it features an image of Ferenc Deák on the front. The latest updated design came out in 2014. Same design but, updated security features. Do you think that hyperinflation will force the Central Bank to keep printing larger denominations?