The Reserve Bank in Australia was left red-faced after an Instagram user shared a photo of an embarrassing typo on its currency notes. Australian radio Triple M exposed the typo after a listener sent a photo. The typo was in the microscopic print near Edith Cowen's image, reports CNBC.
The post showed that the word 'responsibility' was missing the third 'i' and was spelt 'responsibilty'. The error is there in three places.
The word was present in the text of the speech that Cowen had given to the WA Parliament as the first Australian woman MP. She had given the speech in 1921.
The text on the new note reads, "It is a great responsibilty [sic] to be the only woman here, and I want to emphasise the necessity which exists for other women being here."
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) acknowledged the error and said that the mistake will be rectified in the next print run which is scheduled to take place at the end of this year. Currently, there are 46 million $50 notes with the spelling error.
Explaining the delay, the RBA's spokesperson said, "The process of designing and printing a banknote is complex and iterative. We have strict quality assurance processes, but like any manufacturing process, errors can occur. We have reviewed our processes to remove the likelihood of such an error occurring in the future."
Along with Edith Cowen's speech, the microscopic text also contains excerpts from Unaipon's book and Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines.
The note was printed and rolled out in October 2018 with a series of new technology to prevent counterfeiting as well as to remain accessible for the visually impaired. One of the new features are the four new bumps on the note for easy identification.
