Macau residents seem to be in a different league from Hongkongers when it comes to queuing for commemorative Olympic banknotes.

Between 100 and 200 people lined up overnight at Bank of China branches in the city before they opened yesterday - a far cry from the thousands who queued through a massive thunderstorm in Hong Kong on Monday night. Queues in Macau were orderly and it took just a few hours for most BOC branches to distribute tickets which could be used to purchase the banknotes. Twenty-four branches will sell the new banknotes until the end of the month.

Internet filing was one of the reasons Macau was spared the pushing and shoving seen in Hong Kong's massive queues. But some Macau internet users complained that they had failed to apply on the BOC Macau website, which experienced a traffic jam yesterday morning as applicants flooded the site with attempts to log in, meaning many could not get to the application site without a delay.