Friday, July 02, 2004

Rounding cash payments

Yesterday the Dutch central bank announced that a trial with rounding cash payments has succeeded. As of September this year, merchants and retailers will choose to round cash payments to the nearest 5 cents (as we did before when we still had the single guilder-cent). The cost-savings will amount to approximately 30 million euro. And the Society Platform for Payments Issues may take the credit.



Also on the central bank website: a free CD-Rom to learn yourself the safety features of euro bank notes. Given that the CD-rom is free for the public, my guess is that the central bank will soon run out of CD-roms. And they will also experience the above average demand that occurs if you provide something for free.....