The Canadian government is phasing out the use of the lowly penny. In fact, as of February 4, the Royal Canadian Mint will no longer distribute pennies.
Apparently, it cost more than a penny for the mint to produce the penny. And the handling costs to deal with pennies for retailers, financial institutions and the economy, in general, amounted to more than the face value of the pennies. The Canadian government has estimated taxpayers will save $11 million annually by doing away with the penny.
So the Canadian government bid adieu to the lowly once cent piece.
However, phasing out pennies only applies to cash transactions; there is no impact on payments made by cheque, er, check, or electronic transactions. And pennies can still be us...
