Friday, March 23, 2018

National Bank to replace Hr 1, 2, 5 and 10 banknotes with coins



March 22, 2018 (KyivPost) The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has announced that it will issue new coins worth Hr 1, 2, 5 and 10 by 2020. In a statement published by its press service on March 14, the NBU showed off the designs of the new coins, which will replace the paper bills of the same value that are currently in circulation. The NBU will also stop issuing 1-, 2-, 5- and 25-kopika coins.
The replacement of paper bills with coins will make it possible to achieve the optimum balance between the quality and the number of circulating paper bills and coins, which will meet the needs of the state and the economy today,” Yakiv Smolii, the NBU’s acting head, said in a statement posted on the NBU’s website. The NBU will mint the new coins in two stages: the ones worth Hr 1 and Hr 2 will start to be issued on April 27, while the Hr 5 and Hr 10 coins will start to be issued in 2019 and 2020. The bank will cease producing the paper equivalents of the coins, but they will remain valid tender until they are finally taken out of circulation. The replacement of paper bills with coins is due to the devaluation of the hryvnia and the development of cashless payments. The National Bank of Ukraine introduced the designs of the new Hr 1, 2, 5 and 10 coins.

According to the NBU, over the last five years, the share of cashless payments with cards in Ukraine has increased by more than three times. In 2018, 39 percent of payments were made with cards. Ukraine will be able to save around Hr 1 billion due to the measure, as paper bills wear out faster than coins. The NBU removes from circulation 800 million worn out paper bills every year, with 40 percent of them being bills of low denominations, Smolii said.
The new silver-color coins will be from 18 to 23 millimeters in diameter. Framed with an ancient Kyivan Rus ornament, a new coin’s obverse will feature Ukraine’s small coat of arms and the coin’s denomination. The coins’ reverses will feature portraits of the prominent figures in Ukrainian history, as currently depicted on the paper bills of the same value: Kyivan Rus Princes Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise, Ukrainian Hetmans Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivan Mazepa. 
As with the low denomination paper bills, the withdrawn 1-, 2-, 5-, and 25-kopika coins will be legal tender until they are fully removed from circulation. Because there will no longer be 1-, 2-, 5-, and 25-kopika coins, the NBU has set rounding rules for cash payments: a sum that ends in 1-4 kopikas is rounded down to the nearest 10 kopikas, and a sum ending with 5-9 kopikas is rounded up to the nearest 10 kopikas. The rules will come into force on July 1. However, those who still have low denomination kopika coins will be able to pay exact sums, without rounding.

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