With the festive season approaching, the central bank on Thursday warned the public to be on the lookout for high quality counterfeit 100-yuan banknotes.

Though mostly counterfeit 100-yuan ($14) notes are not too hard to make out, people should be careful as cash transactions during Spring Festival are high, it said.

Recent media reports said that 100-yuan notes, starting with numbers "HD90", are fake, but their quality is so high that even cash detectors cannot make them out. The central bank denied the reports yesterday.

On January 2, the Guangzhou-based Information Times reported that a convenience store owner in Dongguan, Guangdong Province, received 15 100-yuan notes starting with figures "HD90" and all of them turned out to be fake.

The Chongqing Morning Post reported yesterday that the "HD90" fake notes have been found in 10 provincial regions.

However, the People's Bank of China confirmed that some fake notes, starting with the numbers "HD9026", with magnetic strips and characters similar to the Braille, could fail "low quality cash detectors", but can be easily made out with the naked eye.

"Even ordinary people can make out from their quality, watermarks and oil," it said.

The central bank issued a statement saying the "HD90" fake notes were also found in 2007, but they now came with "far improved quality and features" similar to the original notes.

In 2007, Guangdong police unearthed a fake notes factory in Jieyang and found a large number of notes starting with the numbers HD90.

"We do not know if there is any other source of such notes," the statement said.

(China Daily January 9, 2009)