AFTER WEEKS OF PREPARATION and sensitisation programmes, commercial banks and business houses will stop giving Barbadians one-cent pieces effective today, following a Central Bank of Barbados decision to stop issuing them.
Central Bank currency officer Sherri Bishop expects the transition to be smooth, pointing out that a number of retailers, including supermarkets, had adapted their cash registers to make it easier for customers. As a result, Barbadians will either lose or gain up to two cents on some transactions.
The one cent, which will continue to be legal tender indefinitely, is no longer being produced because of economic reasons – it takes five cents to mint a single cent.
Jordans Supermarket is one of the companies which has adapted its point of sale system to facilitate the change. Speaking to the MIDWEEK NATION at the supermarket chain’s Fitts Village, St James outlet, Bishop said the primary thing consumers had to remember was “if your total comes to a number that doesn’t end in zero or five. . .you will need to round it up or down to the nearest five”.
“So if it’s one or two it will go down because that’s closer to zero than to five, and three or four it will go up to five, six or seven it will go down, and eight or nine it will go up,” she explained.
“We have gone out and we have done training sessions with a number of cashiers for a number of organisations in addition to the stakeholder meetings that we have been having.”
(SC)
