Page "Currency" Paragraph 21

A banknote ( more commonly known as a bill in the United States and Canada ) is a type of currency, and commonly used as legal tender in many jurisdictions.

With coins, banknotes make up the cash form of all money.

Banknotes are mostly paper, but Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation developed the world's first polymer currency in the 1980s that went into circulation on the nation's bicentenary in 1988.

Now used in some 22 countries ( over 40 if counting commemorative issues ), polymer currency dramatically improves the life span of banknotes and prevents counterfeiting.