The European Central Bank (ECB) said today that 265,000 counterfeit euro banknotes were removed from circulation during the second half of last year.
This compares with a total of 300,000 in the first half of the year.
The ECB said the number of counterfeits has varied only slightly over the past three years while the number of genuine banknotes in circulation has been increasing and reached 10.6 billion in the second half of last year.