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Weak or strong, popular or playing second or third fiddle to the Euro, €5 note or the Yen ¥5000, and so on, America’s paper money is changing regularly.

It’s part of the steady effort to keep up with technology and especially the high-tech efforts to counterfeit the money. On March 14 a new five dollar bill will be released by the U.S. Treasury. Banks should have it then or soon.

Here are some facts about the new fiver (more on that nickname later) that you’ll soon have at your disposal.

– If you hold the new $5 bill up to a light you can see some of the new security features that the government says are easy to use by consumers and cash handlers alike. Security measures include putting various security threads in different places. The new threat glows blue under ultraviolet light. Some small numbers and letters are different on the new bill.

– One side of it still will have a portrait of the Great Emancipator, our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, but Honest Abe will have a few new splashes of color, including purple, on or near his likeness.

– The new bills will begin circulating in the United States first, then spread gradually to banks and other enterprises around the globe. International banks place orders for the new currency from the Federal Reserve.

– The fiver is widely used in vending machines so businesses affected were notified of the new bill’s release about 90 days ago so they could update the devices to accept the new currency.

– The Treasury Department has notified businesses that deal in cash to make sure their employees are trained on what security features to look for in the new $5 bill before they start having to handle it.

– It may seem obvious, but not everyone realizes that the old $5 will still be usable pretty much until each individual note wears out. There’s no need to trade it in on the new model. And it’s still worth five bucks.

If you doubt the effort to increase security of U.S. currency, consider this from the Treasury Department:

“The redesign of U.S. currency began with the introduction of a new $20 bill in 2003, followed by a $50 bill in 2004 and a $10 bill in 2006. A redesigned $100 bill is scheduled to follow the new $5 bill (later this year.)

“The redesigned $5 bills are safer, smarter and more secure: safer because they’re easier to check; smarter to stay ahead of savvy counterfeiters; and more secure to protect the integrity of U.S. currency.

“Because security features are difficult for counterfeiters to reproduce well, they often do not try, hoping that cash handlers and the public will not check their money.”

Although the bills are not different sizes, as are some country’s notes, the new five has design updates to help people tell the denominations apart, especially people with impaired vision.

“The back of the $5 bill features a larger, purple number “5” in the lower right corner to help those who have visual impairments to distinguish the denomination,” reports the Treasury Department.

I mentioned the “fiver” as a nickname for the $5 bill. Another is a “fin.” Experts say that slang apparently comes from the Yiddish word “finf,” for five, which comes from the German “Funf” pronounced Foonf.

So, why not get yourself a couple of the new fins next week. Just make sure yours have Lincoln on the cover, not Herb Savage.

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Chris is a former news anchor for CNN and for ABC-TV stations in Atlanta, Houston and Washington D.C. Email: chris@chriscurle.com.