European Central Bank will no longer produce or distribute 500-euro notes

The notes are the global favourite in the international drug trade and many other illicit activities.

The idea behind banning them is simply to make it more bulky for criminals and money launderers to move vast sums of money.

The outstanding bills will remain legal tender but will slowly be taken out of circulation if/when they're deposited at banks.

It will take at least a generation for them to disappear. In effect, they will simply pass back and forth among criminals. In Canada, the $1000 bill was eliminated in 2002 but more than 900,000 of the bills ($900m worth) are still unaccounted for compared to 2.8 million when they were taken out of circulation.

The €200 note will remain.