Zero Pound notes occupy a peculiar legal space: they carry no monetary value and are therefore not governed by the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which applies only to currency intended to pass as genuine. Zero Pound Banknote Ltd has exploited this gap since around 2017 to produce souvenir issues tied to British landmarks and cultural figures, with Oberthur Fiduciaire — a serious security printer whose client list includes numerous central banks — providing production quality that far exceeds the novelty premise.
The QR code links to a digital certificate, the company's main concession to anti-counterfeiting logic on an item that cannot, by definition, be counterfeited.
Zero Pound notes occupy a peculiar legal space: they carry no monetary value and are therefore not governed by the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981, which applies only to currency intended to pass as genuine. Zero Pound Banknote Ltd has exploited this gap since around 2017 to produce souvenir issues tied to British landmarks and cultural figures, with Oberthur Fiduciaire — a serious security printer whose client list includes numerous central banks — providing production quality that far exceeds the novelty premise.
The QR code links to a digital certificate, the company's main concession to anti-counterfeiting logic on an item that cannot, by definition, be counterfeited.