Considering the immense requests made and the difficulties faced by the general public in exchanging willfully defaced currency notes after 31.03.2018, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) has decided to continue the service of exchange of willfully mutilated, altered and defaced currency notes from CBSL until further notice.

Accordingly, the general public is hereby informed to submit such currency notes to the CBSL Head Office or Regional Offices located at Anuradhapura, Matale, Matara, Trincomalee, Nuwara Eliya, Kilinochchi or send the same by registered post to the following address together with the duly completed application form. The relevant application form can be obtained from the CBSL website (www.cbsl.gov.lk), Regional Offices and any branch of Licensed Commercial Banks (LCBs).

Further, CBSLwishes to  inform the general public that the currency notes that have been mistakenly marked in the form of a small dot or a line are not considered as willfuly mutilated currency notes and such currency notes can be used for tansactions.  Service of accepting damage currency notes by the LCBs due to normal wear and tear or due to natural disasters will continue without any change. 

In addition, All LCBs have been instructed to calibrate currency processing machines to detect willfully mutilated, altered and/or defaced currency notes. However, in case of general public receiving a defaced currency note from an ATM or other currency handling machine, such currency notes can be exchanged from the nearest bank branch. 

If any difficulties faced on the above, you may contact :

The Superintendent

Currency Department

Central Bank of Sri Lanka

No.30 

Janadhipathi Mawatha

Colombo 01

Sri Lanka.

Tel - 0112477587

Email – currency@cbsl.lk

Fax - 0112477726