Clydesdale Bank £5 note Clydesdale Bank £5 note The Clydesdale Bank £5 note is a banknote of the pound sterling. It is the smallest denomination of banknote issued by the Clydesdale Bank. The current polymer note, first issued in 2015, bears an image of engineer William Arrol on the obverse and an image of the Forth Bridge on the reverse. It is the first fully polymer banknote to go into circulation in the United Kingdom. The Clydesdale Bank began issuing £5 notes in 1838, the same year as the bank's founding. Early banknotes were monochrome, and printed on one side only. The issuing of
Federal Reserve Note denominated notes since the 1990 series a vertical laminate strip imprinted with denomination information, which under ultraviolet light fluoresces a different color for each denomination ($5 note: blue; $10 note: orange; $20 note: green; $50 note: yellow; $100 note: red). According to the central banks, the number of counterfeited bank notes seized annually is about 10 in one million of real bank notes for the Swiss franc, of 50 in one million for the Euro, of 100 in one million for United States dollar and of 300 in one million for pound sterling. Critics, such as the American Council of