This is crazy news; but the fact that they will be reintroducing bills goes against the idea of it being currency elimination. They have been saying that Pakistan has been counterfeiting bills. This is a serious way to destabilize the economy -something both the US and Germany considered/tried in WWII. Portugal faced a serious crisis like this when a conman got the mint to "'counterfeit" a huge amount of money. (He tricked the mint into thinking he represented the government, then spent the money they printed... ingenious as far as frauds go... ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alves_dos_Reis The extent to which this is really a Pakistani anti-counterfeiting move and or a move to collect taxes is hard to say though. There are other countries whose largest bill is only worth $1 or so. Burma and Venezuela are countries that come to mind.