Ireland's Central Bank has welcomed the government's decision today to rollout the rounding of 1c and 2c coins nationally after a successful trial period in County Wexford.
Whilst details of how the rounding will be implemented are yet to be confirmed we know that the key features of rounding are as follows: rounding will be conducted on a voluntary basis; 1c and 2c coins will remain legal tender; rounding will apply only to cash payments, and the total amount of any bill will be rounded down or up to the nearest 5c.
This means that a traditional transaction amounting to €3.96 or 3.97 will be rounded down to €3.95 and a transaction amounting to either €3.98 or €3.99 will be rounded up to €4.00.
A 1c coin costs 1.65c to produce, while a 2c coin costs 1.94c.
Up until June 12th, 2015, 1,096,853,216 2c coins have been issued into circulation in the State, amounting to €21,937,064.32 and 1,384,491,236 1c coins have been issued into circulation in the State, amounting to €13,844,912.36.
Other countries to have already adopted the rounding of 1c and 2c coins include The Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Hungary and Belgium.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Niall Swan
