Canadians begin seeing a new-look $5 bill in their wallets on Wednesday — the latest Bank of Canada note to thwart counterfeiters.

The revamped $5 bill is the last in the series of bank notes to get a security upgrade.

The new $5 bill has a number of security features intended to make counterfeiting more difficult.
(CBC)

The Bank of Canada began issuing a new $100 bill in March 2004, while the new $20 appeared in September 2004 and the $50 bill got its facelift in November 2004. The revamped $10 bill began circulating in May 2005.

As with the other larger denominations, the new $5 bill has several features meant to discourage forgeries, including:

• A holographic stripe. When the bill is tilted, brightly coloured numerals and maple leaves will "move" within the holographic stripe. There is a colour split within each maple leaf.
• Watermarked portrait. Hold the note to a light, and a small ghost-like image of the portrait appears to the left of the large numeral.
• Windowed colour-shifting thread. Hold the note to the light and a continuous, solid line appears. From the back of the note, the thread resembles a series of exposed metallic dashes that shift from gold to green when the bill is tilted.
• See-through number. Hold the note to the light, and the irregular marks on the front and back will form a perfectly aligned number.

With the introduction of higher-security bank notes, fewer fakes are being passed in Canada.

According to the RCMP, 402,303 counterfeit notes were passed in 2005, down from 553,000 in 2004. The Bank of Canada says that trend is continuing in 2006. There are about 1.35 billion notes in circulation.