The Central Bank of Ireland has officially rolled out its new 'Rounding' intiative, which means that change for consumers will need to be rounded up or down to the nearest five cent.
For retailers, this means that amounts ending in:
- 1 and 2 would be rounded down to zero
- 3 and 4 would be rounded up to 5
- 6 and 7 would be rounded down to 5
- 8 and 9 would be rounded up to 10
Rounding is not compulsory, and consumers can request that Rounding is not applied to their change if they so wish. Where a retailer is applying Rounding, they can apply it automatically without asking the consumer.
“The reaction so far to Rounding has been fantastic,” said Ronnie O’Toole of the Central Bank of Ireland. "As a country, we are good at making changes like this. We migrated to the euro ahead of most other countries, and the indications so far are that consumers and retailers alike will embrace Rounding.”
Six EU member states have already adopted a symmetrical rounding policy: Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, The Netherlands and Sweden.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
