Slashdot Mirror
Canada Rolls Out Plastic Money
markian writes "Canada is set to switch to new banknotes that last 2.5 times longer than paper money. High-tech features include metallic imagery in a transparent area, raised ink, transparent text, and hidden numbers. 'If you look through the frosted maple leaf emblem at a single-point light source and hold it close to your eye, you'll see a hidden circle of numbers that match the face value of the note.' The Bank of Canada has more information on the subject. Now if we can just get rid of the penny..."
At first I read that the notes were 2.5 times longer than paper money, as in ~15 inches. talk about a wad of cash!
-- Flame me and I will happily flame you back. Bring it!
Australia has had polymer banknotes since 1988, and in fact it's an Australian company that will be supplying these notes to Canada. Polymer banknotes have been used to varying degrees in 27 countries prior to Canada.
Canada still uses paper notes?!
Came to Australia in 1998 and thought the polymer notes looked like Monopoly money. Having used it for a while it's so much better than the paper stuff. Hardly ever tears, is easy to see how much you have in your wallet just by opening it. Stands out from a wad of receipts.
Whenever I have to go the US I hate having to use those crappy bits of toilet paper that feel like they been stuck to some homeless guy's arse since 1973.
You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
Some interesting suggestions for new US banknotes: Dollar ReDe$ign Project
man I feel the pain. Costs like 1.6 cents [as of 2009 and according wikipedia 1.79 cents per penny last year] just to make one penny and they SUCK. 99% of the time I just tell whatever cashier/staff keep the pennies. Keeps em out of my pocket/change jar and might help the next bloke who is a penny short :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_banknote
Australia also got rid of one and two cent coins.
Canada dumped the dollar bill in favor of coins of the same denomination. We talk about it in the US - just like we said back in the 60s that we would switch to the metric system - and never actually do it.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Current bills are printed on a custom fabric that in many ways resembles paper. But it's not paper... it's just very very thin cloth.
... and thus a tool for the consolidation of wealth to those with the power to inflate, and the power to spend the newly inflated currency at pre-inflation prices.
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
fiat money.
Or what about Mexico? It's not that far from Canada, and they've had plastic bills for years.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Even though they've been around for years in Australia, this is the first I've heard of polymer notes. I tried looking through the Canadian info sites where they pumped how good it was for the environment, recyclable, holds up longer, yadda yadda . . . I missed where it showed how the notes held up against routine extremes (most notably for me, the clothes dryer . . .)
As someone who has 1 in 5 dollars that are downey-fresh, how do they hold to the cotton dry cycle?
The notes are not yet rolled out. They are to be rolled out later this year, November to be exact.
It's become more and more common for me to go days and weeks with no cash whatsoever in my pocket. Credit and Debit will cover nearly everything that I need or want,
I now look back fondly on the days of yore when I would have been embarrassed to use a card to pay for a cup of coffee. Now it's the norm, even though I know that I've pretty much wiped out the retailer profit margin with service charges. (Admittedly at Starbucks or McDonalds that's a selling point...)
Three Squirrels
... for years.
Current bills are printed on a custom fabric that in many ways resembles paper. But it's not paper... it's just very very thin cloth.
While it may contain fibers other than traditional wood pulp, it's still paper.
Cloth is a weaving of thread. Paper is a pressing of pulp.
Cotton fiber or not, our money is still made from paper.
How about we worry less what the money is made of, and more about what's backing the money? Call me paranoid but government fiat seems a little untrustworthy to me.
Sam has one liberty, which he sacrifices for one security. Can you tell me what Sam has now?
More importantly. How well do they sit in a G-String?
I personally don't see the appeal of getting rid of the penny. My guess is retailers and so forth will simply price things such that you'll always have to give slightly more so that they can get the extra nickel out of you instead of leaving it at a price where customers would be at an advantage. To those who say "so? it's just a nickel!", count to 100 and see how many times you said a multiple of 5. Adds up quick doesn't it?
how is babby formed?
Except US notes aren't really paper.
Slashdot hasn't posted it's daily Bitcoin story yet. If Canada switched to Bitcoin, that would be a story!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
I can just imagine a bunch of kids pointing laser pointers through the notes into their eyes trying to see the numbers
According to this wiki they are more durable, harder to tear, more resistant to folding, more resistant to soil, waterproof (and washing machine proof), easier to machine process, and are shreddable and recyclable at the end of their useful lives. (bold emphasis mine). From the other links I've found, they hold up poorly in the dryer on high heat. On the plus side, it sounds as if they can be sanitized in the dishwasher . . .
I remember when it was introduced here in Oz, in 1988, and they first stocked the ATM's. Some of them were issuing 2 or 3 times the amount you asked for because the notes were heating up inside the mechanism and sticking together!
See through money rocks.
I love travelling to countries with plastic notes. No worries about getting them wet (if you are at a beach, etc.) No tearing issues, they last longer... and they can be made from partial or fully recycled plastic. I would even be OK with coins eventually being modified to some sort of cheaper substance. I think we have all moved away from the days of needing to think our currency itself has value or importance. Hell, most of us use a small plastic rectangle for almost everything everyday.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
we switched here in australia about 22 years ago.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
For something Australia has been doing since 1988?
Lets go back to hauling around buckets of gold, or barter. Much more convenient than this "money".
We should make a plastic bill with X thousandth (x based on denomination) of an once of gold in the middle. That would be hard to counterfeit.
They may be 20 years behind Australia, but on the bright side, they're probably 20 years ahead of the USA.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
It occurs to me that the chief reason that Canada dropped the 1 and 2 dollar bills in favor of coins was related to longevity. Since these plastic bills last so much longer than paper, can we please get our $1 and $2 bills back?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It's nice to see a story about money on /. that is about real money, and not Cyber-Cash.
Apologies, it seems it''s not the actual notes being supplied by an Australian company but the polypropylene substrate
Let's hope they have tested the Australia substrate for the Canadian climate. It will not go down well if I open my wallet in the winter when it hits -40C and the plastic notes all turn brittle and shatter. I'm also somewhat mystified about how DNA (pictured on the note) is a Canadian contribution to science. Crick was British and Watson American...so they somehow average to be Canadian? In fact I was unable to find any Canadian scientists mentioned in the Wikipedia article describing history of DNA.
How can the government track it's citizens if you allow anonymous currency? This obvious threat to national security needs to be eliminated to stop the terrorists.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
not too terribly expensive
How much does it cost per month for someone who sells used goods for about three days a year to have an iPhone, a data plan, and this service?
a quarter in 1975 had about the same buying power as a dollar today.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
over here in Malaysia we have paper money for all denominations except the RM 5 bill, which is "plastic money", my colleague use it to floss his teeth
geek page at KY speaks
Fags.
I can hardly wait until these come out to tell people that the special thing about the high-denomination ones is that they're fireproof.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm surprised we don't see RFID tags embedded in money yet, especially in polymer notes with metal strips it should be feasible. This is of course a "security feature" and has nothing to do with tracking...
What happens when they wear out? People are criticising the US notes a lot here; but I like the fact that it's paper and not plastic. What will happen if a baby sucks on a polymer note? Is there BPA in there? Also, I like the fact that if you look closely at a US note you can see blue threads--from recycled Levi's jeans.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Is that a pharmaceutical bottle on the front of the bill?
The first trial (in 1988) of the Australian $10 note had a hologram of Captain Cook on the transparent section of the note. The hologram fell off after some use.
The full production notes since 1988 do not use any holograms as a security device.
Refer to http://www.rba.gov.au/Museum/Displays/1988_onwards_polymer_currency_notes/first_polymer.html
http://www.rba.gov.au/Museum/Displays/1988_onwards_polymer_currency_notes/complete_series.html
Maybe it was just me, but from the video in the article, I was sort of hoping the portrait's moustache was raised as well :P
N.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Yes, great idea, instead of moving away from a wazte of resources, let's wazte permanent ones instead!
GREAT IDEA!
With all the financial crises going on in the world, it would be more interesting to hear about countries who start rolling in money, made of plastic or whatsoever.
I think people forget that you can also get rid of the penny but still have the currency divisible down to that amount, or even smaller if you like. Much of what goes on these days is electronic, and precision there is just a matter of how the software is set up. So you can still decide that the US Dollar should be divisible by 100 as its smallest denomination, just that there will be no physical representation. So when using credit cards, ACH transfers, and so on you continue to get stuff rounded to 0.01. When using cash, you now round to 0.05.
Now yes, this will mean people who use cash get "ripped off" slightly. If you purchase something that is $3.01, you'll have to pay $3.05, the store gets to keep the extra 4 cents. However as you note it is a trivial amount. At current US federal minimum wage, that is 20 seconds of work.
Given that, I think it is a great idea. Pennies are just a pain in the ass and are not economically feasible. Nothing would serious would be changed since so much is done electronically and that would not be affected.
ALLEGATIONS of bribery involving Australian-based banknote firm Securency International have led to three arrests in Malaysia.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Yes... But what happens in a hot dryer?.... "Man, that chick just pissed all over my jeans.... better wash 'em.... Oh crap my hundred dollar bonus was in those pockets!!!!" lol
>Now if we can just get rid of the penny..." ....because not all countries are equal and we use the differences to adjust our own system....so if we do away with our pennies, giving in to the temptation of
I really was enjoying the post until i read that. It does not take a genius to know that if you do away with the penny, you now have given in to the push on inflation to raise prices on everything. Yes, if you get rid of the penny, you just made the nickel the new penny, and now everyone will be basing pricing accordingly, instead of 1 or 2 cent hikes, you will have 5 and 10 cent hikes. Can no one understand the problem with this, it is the same issue as when you are using yen. If you knew that the yen was going to be where it is now, would you not have just stopped getting rid of smaller denominations and maybe just worked harder at keeping the dollar at par.
I can get 412 yen for 5$, so for a big mac it costs me 412 japanese bucks....why not just do away with all the smaller denominations and keep the buck = buck
making it look easier on ourselves....it will actually make it harder for our country to stay where it is on the global market.
We now will have hikes that will shoot prices up much too quickly, making the poor even poorer and so on, then our economy will deplete itself and on a global scale we will shoot back down, where now we might need to bring back the penny....because on a global scale our tender has deflated to a all time low point.
If any business or economics majors are out there that can shed some proper light on this, in proper terms, as I am using laymens jargon, it would be greatly appreciated.
great move Canada, now if only the US Treasury could be so smart. As for getting rid of the penny, how about getting rid of the ".9" of a penny on gas pumps.