According to an article in TesfaNews dated 29 November 2015, the Bank of Eritrea began replacing preceding issues at par with these new notes from 18 November to the end of 2015. During November, individuals and entities could deposit any amount of money in their accounts, but during December, deposits and exchanges were limited to 20,000 nakfa. On 1 January 2016, the old nakfa notes was demonetized. The move was meant to harm black marketeers who hoard large sums of money for informal foreign currency exchange, money laundering, counterfeiting, and contraband purposes.
The 100-nakfa note (B110) had been printed in 2011 but held in storage and released only now in late 2015. All the other notes in this new family are dated 24.5.2015 and begin with AA prefixes, indicating a new family, but the 100-nakfa is dated 24.5.2011 and has prefix AJ – AN.
Courtesy of Thomas Augustsson.