The United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing unveiled the new $5 bill today in its latest move to minimize counterfeit money.

Originally, the five wasn’t going to be redesigned. But that decision was reversed once counterfeiters began bleaching $5 notes and printing fake $100 bills with the bleached paper to take advantage of the fact that some of the security features were in the same locations on both notes.

To thwart this particular scam, the government is changing the $5 watermark from one of Lincoln to two separate watermarks featuring the numeral 5. The $100 bill has a watermark with the image of Benjamin Franklin.

The security thread embedded in the $5 bill also has been moved to a different location than the one embedded in the $100 bill.

According to the US Secret Service, the counterfeiting of US currency has been on the rise over the past several years.

The redesign of the $5 bill also comes at a good time: In the last few years, counterfeiting has been on a steady rise. The amount of counterfeit currency accepted by consumers and stores in the US rose from $36.6 million in 2003 to $62 million last year.

Read more about this issue at our Counterfeit Dollars page.