They’re not worth anything, never were but even less through the years with inflation.
If a store wants to sell something for 99 cent, they can either just take 1€ or 95 cent.
Maybe even 5 cent pieces? But that would be a bit radical.
I am a bit annoyed that easy ideas like this are never discussed in politics, or wherever. It would make our lives just a little bit easier, and having them achieves NOTHING.
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There are European countries that have no 1 and 2c coins (Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Finland). The prices are the same, when you buy something the sum is simply rounded up to the next 5 cents.
Works fine.
Here in NL the amount gets rounded to the nearest multiple of five, so for 1.92 you have to pay 1.90 in cash and 1.93 will become 1.95. This so on average you are not overpaying. Digital payments are always exact.
croatian here, we recently, in january of this year, switched to euro. im still mindblown by how much 1 cent is (like, 7.5 times more than 1 lipa was). and since i already carry 10 times more coins now then when i did when we used kunas, i really dont mind the 1 and 2 cent coins. in fact, a lot of things here cost x.x3 or x.x7 €, so its quite convenient to have some cents in your wallet
Damn that’s interesting. In Germany you can maybe get something for 10 cent somewhere, but everything else is at least 20 or 50 cent ^^
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Children in elementary schools use coins as an example to learn calculating. They need the 1 cent coins. Is nobody here thinking about the children?
Well, they sure can learn with something else.
Woooosh
(the joke being that the adage is a trope at this point)
In Canada we’ve removed them and I’m just left wondering why we have 5 and 10 cent pieces now. They’re also absolutely useless.
I am all for it. Though here in Germany it would probably give quite a number of people a heart attack not being able to pay an exact amount to the cent.
I feel called out.
No, seriously. Last season I bought some plums from my Turkish greengrocer, he put them on the scales which said 1.01 Euro which he commented with “one Euro”. I gave him 1.01 Euro, and got a “can you believe those Almans” look.
They could by paying with card.
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They could pay with card, but it’s something special here with many of the old folks and cash. Part of the ancient shopping ritual to put out the small coins and delay the queue as long as possible. Why? No idea, apart from “Das haben wir schon immer so gemacht!” (We always did it like this)
Well, cash has privacy by design. So I much prefer that to the American card provider monopoly.
Still convenient when traveling light, I just don’t want to rely on it. By regularly paying cash I incentivize the upkeep of the German cash infrastructure.
Austrian here, paying with cash and counting every single coin is still common here.
As a swiss person, I get surprised every time the price doesn’t automatically round to the next multiple of 5 cents when I’m in the EU. So yes, get rid of them.
As a swiss, you’re used to find it the first prices in Europe, not you don’t think about other economies.
There’s a comment in here from someone whose country recently switched to euros, and many small items there cost under 10 cents. Rounding down would make them free, rounding up doubles their price…
The measure is reasonable if the local economy is suited - Belgium and the Netherlands have been rounding bills for a good while now, but it’s not something that should be pushed from the European level.
Not that I said rounding bills - individual items are stille priced to the cent. When paying by card, you pay the exact total, but when paying cash it gets rounded to the nearest 5 cent.
What if they just stopped minting them
I’d be in fervor
I’m in the UK and we have so many 1 penny coins dating back to like the 70s, don’t see why we need to continue minting them
Yep, I’m a big fan of the approach of getting rid of smaller coins and just rounding at the register. The Netherlands already do this and I don’t think anyone there misses the small coins.
Denmark did it too. Worked fine.
Absolutely! I carry only a small wallet and hate coins in general. Totally could pass on 1 and 5 Cent coins. Throw them in a box at home (even 10 Cent coins) and have no idea on what to do with them. Brought them to a store once, but they would take 10% and you could only use the money in the store. Found a bank where you can bring them in for 5%, but you would have to roll them up yourself (definitely not gonna do their work and still give them 5%). Maybe I will put it in a chest and bury it somewhere in the forest near a playground so kids can go treasure hunting :D
making it a kid’s game is a good idea, but you could also try to go around local shops and ask if they are low on coins, they’d probably give you 1 to 1
Good riddance! I never use them, collect them and bring them to one of the few banks that still accept coins.
I only use them when I empty my wallet in a self checkout to get rid of them
We should have gotten rid of them some time ago.
Hungary has in the recent past got rid of 1 and 2 HUF coins. Prices can still be XX99, only total transaction amounts have to be rounded according to official rounding laws, but only if in cash.
It works.
What are the rules for rounding?
If the price ends on 1 or 2 HUF, it goes down to the nearest ten, if it’s 3,4,6 or 7 it rounds to 5, if it’s 8 or 9 it goes up to the nearest ten.
No one really cares that much, as 1 HUF is worth around a third of a cent.
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In Romania we have Lei and Bani. Works the same as Euro and cents. We only have 10 and 50 bani coins. And generally we round to the nearest 50 bani.
I am in favour. But let’s go ever further and get rid of cash entirely.
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There are ways to do anonymous payments without cash. Just see the other comment. Relying on cash forever is just some libertarian fever dream.
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Which comment?
https://feddit.de/comment/399272
GNU Taler, apparently. Never have seen this used anywhere.
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Privacy and transactions without internet connection?
ECB is working on the “digital Euro” right now, and I’m almost completely sure it won’t enable offline payments, simple peer to peer transactions or even anonymous payments. It’s a real shame, because GNU Taler is interesting and the crypto should be explored further.
The 2020 report of the ECB actually states offline payments as a desired feature and to work overall “like cash”. Anonymous payments, however, are ruled out (money laundering bla bla, probably a rather weak argument considering Taler’s characteristics).
Okay, offline payments might work between a shop terminal and a customer, but what is as if not more important is the ability to easily give money to a friend privately, which I don’t see.
Did you see this in widespread use anywhere?
No, but I also didn’t see contactless payment methods being widely used until the pandemic.
Where do you live?
I could pay contactless almost anywhere before the pandemic. You might get weird looks at the bakery if it was like 2€, but that was it.
Germany. You could do card payments but only by sliding your card into a card reader. NFC payments were pretty much non-existent. Third world country 🫠
