Ban the fil? - Gulf News

Dubai: Bank officials have insisted that the smallest coins in circulation in the UAE should remain legal tender even though some shops say they are rarely used. The Central Bank of the UAE told Gulf News the 1fils, 5fils and 10fils coins were worth keeping.

However, shop managers say customers prefer to be given 25fils coins instead of the smaller denomination copper coins. Paresh Buch from the finance department of Spinneys said use of the 5fils and 10fils coins was "very restricted" and the 1fils coin was not used at all. "If customers give us these coins, we'll accept them because they are still legal tender, but normally customers don't carry them," he said.

Buch said Spinneys ordered batches of 5fils and 10fils coins from banks to give out as change to customers. "The movement of these coins is only one way. Even if we give them out to the customers, I'm not sure they use them," he said.

It was worth keeping the coins, Buch said, since otherwise the supermarket would have to give out, for example, 25fils change when 15fils was due. "If we started having to do this for all of our transactions, it would turn out to be quite a large sum," Buch added.

The Eclectic Econoclast has been an advocate of banning the (Canadian) penny long, long before the Internet, let alone blogging, was a glimmer in the eye of Al Gore. Here's his latest on the subject. I'll lay dirhams to donuts he puts his 2 cents in on this posting.