h a l f b a k e r yMagical moments of mediocrity.
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(This will NOT apply to the USA, so any comments like 'In the USA we have dollar bills, and our ATMs should never give quarters and Susan B Anthony dollar coins' are unwelcome)
When using an ATM, at least in the UK, it is impossible to withdraw an exact number of pounds; instead, you have to round
up to a multiple of GBP 10 ('tenner') (or, if you are lucky, GBP 5 ('fiver')).
Instead, why not have machines that carry a supply of GBP 1 (pound* coin) (and/or GBP 2 (two pound coin)) coins so that you can withdraw an exact amount (for example, GBP 54).
This would help those who have to rely on cash machines to receive their wages/pensions - if their bank won't give them a debit card, and they live miles from the branch, for example. (Most wages, pensions and benefits are not round multiples of GBP 10.)
(Incidentally, I write GBP (or USD) because it does not lead to problems of character set incompatibilities.)
(However, carrying ten-pence and penny coins would be going too far...)
On a similar topic, perhaps they should give GBP 50 (fifty pound) notes as well - many bank cards allow people to withdraw GBP 250, GBP 300 or even GBP 500 at once, and taking GBP 500 in twenty pound notes is liable to result in the loss of at least one expensive piece of paper...
* 'Pound' coin for our purpose includes any coin of similar value, e.g. FRF 10, EUR 1 (or 2) or something like that.
http://en.wikipedia..._%28British_coin%29
badly designed and easily forged [xenzag, Jun 15 2011]
[link]
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Why? I've never been in the position of needing £54 when £50 or £60 wouldn't do just as well. It's not like you withdraw the total amount of your wages every week. |
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but think of the potential for panic pin on a machine like this... high velocity anti-personal coins... |
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Robert, it's 'antipersonnel'. |
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In the US the same thing happens. Very few ATM's give out fives, and fewer and fewer have tens, so mostly you have to round to twenties. Would be nice if you could get smaller things sometimes <The machines here at work take fives, but nothing larger>. |
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StarChaser. I suppose the high velocity coins could be both anti-personnel and anti-personal. Especially if they were sprayed around in a wide enough area once the panic pin was triggered. |
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You can still get pound notes in Scotland. |
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You can get stamps from ATMs or at least I could while I
was in pittsburgh. We also have a dollar coin in the US
now. "Sackies" seems to be the name people are using for
them. The MTA travel card machines give them out. I'm
sad that there are no more subway tokens... though you
can still get them on roosevelt island if you take the
tramway. |
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I guess it's irrelevant to this thread that any such machine would cost the banks substantially more to build and operate. The current system of dispensing banknotes allows the ATM to hold thousands of individual bills in a very small space. Coins are very bulky, and the dispenser would add a whole new level of unnecessary complexity to an already complicated device. |
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Love the idea of pound-coin ATMs! Love it! There's nothing better than a pocketful of clacking pound coins while the pub's still open. I'm all for it! |
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And if the machine should run out of notes before it runs out of coins, and you are the next lucky person who withdraws 100 quid, imagine ... it'd be just like hitting the jackpot in Vegas! |
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My friend works in a part of the City (in London) where the ATMs only do 50 pound notes or higher. It's not their whole wages for the week [angel], it's nowhere near. A 22-year-old has just graduated from my department and is going to earn GBP1000 a week as a rig engineer for TotalFina. She needs high-denomination ATMs otherwise she'll never get through her money. You've gotta use it or lose it. |
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My point was that I can't see why you would need £54 exactly. Why not 50 or 60? |
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i seem to remember in vancouver they had a change/atm machine that you could get change or withdraw cash at so there must be some fiscal benefit to it, banks not being known for their altruisitic gestures and all... |
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sctld:"You can still get pound notes in Scotland" |
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Yeah, they`re pretty hot stuff in England - blue...paper...must be a fiver, here, have 4 pounds bonus change sir!! |
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[sctld]: //You can still get pound notes in Scotland// |
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But not from any cash machine I've ever used. Even five pound notes have been almost wholly phased out. In fact... |
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[ezjtb]: Bringing fivers back would get round the problem of totally changing the machines. But I suspect tenners will be the next to go. |
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[angel] simonrose mentions benefits and pensions and this is a key point, I think. Whenever I've been through a period of unemployment, or poverty for whatever reason, I quite often had less than ten quid in the bank, and I'm sure it's the same for pensioners or others in similar situations. Most benefits and pensions these days are paid directly into the bank and you may well - as simonrose says - have no easy access to it, other than by ATM. Many's the time I've had seven or eight pound in the bank - or some equally paltry sum - and no food in the house, because I couldn't get to the bank, being on some 50 quid per week work experience thing. I used to hate going to bed hungry when I knew that I did actually have money in the bank; I just couldn't get at it. |
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I have lots of cash and credit now, but I know folks that don't, so this one gets a croissant from me.| — | Guy Fox,
Jul 13 2001, last modified Jul 15 2001 |
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[ezjtb] "I guess it's irrelevant to this thread that any such machine would cost the banks substantially more to build and operate." But still substantially less than hiring a human being, which is why the banks use them to begin with. |
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[angel] "Why?" Because one might want to make a purchase costing 53GBP when they only have 57GBP in the bank. |
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In the USA we have dollar bills, and our ATMs should never give quarters and Susan B Anthony dollar coins.
Sorry, had to do that. |
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The Metrolink ATM ticket machine never fails to give me a load of Susan B Anthony coins. I must give it a 5 dollar bill first. Did you all know they made a new batch of SBA coins in 1999? |
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i have been in the position whilst a student of having a few pence less than a dispensable ammount left in the account, at that point being able to get £9 out of the bank would have been very handy |
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which Vancouver are you thinking of? In Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA, I have never seen such a machine, and I have lived in the city all my life. |
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Hmm, yes, I can see the benefit of retooling all existing
ATMs to handle coins just so that people who want to use
vending machines but only happen to have large bills don't
have to suffer a minor inconvenience. |
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Why, the potential increase in revenue to the vending
machine industry alone must be well into the millionths of
a percent! |
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[ytk] guessing you're a young'un: back in the deep dark depths of the past, businesses did things that were for the customer's benefit, even banks. |
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Ah, those were the good old days, weren't they? I remember service stations pumping your gas for you, and you could walk in and get a free map even if you didn't buy any gas. |
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Handing me a pile of small metal discs that are heavy and
irritating to sit on when placed in my back pocket instead
of nice, foldable, easy to carry paper that fits nicely into a
wallet is not in any way beneficial. So maybe a better,
easier, and cheaper idea would be to just modify vending
machines to accept larger bills? |
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I would really like to see the decision making
process that resulted in SBA quarters. |
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The pound coin is little and thick, and
distinguishable from a dime with your eyes closed. |
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Oh no bad idea. The UK pound coin is the most hated, badly designed item of currency on the planet. It's heavy, yet soundless when dropped, due to its constituent metal. |
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Not only that, but at least 1 in 36 of all pound coins are said to be forgeries.(see link) If I had may way this clunky hideous coin would be confined to the melting pots. |
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A better idea would be to offer pound notes and bring them back into circulation. |
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I rather like them, so perhaps I'm just weird. |
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Erm, I could be wrong but I think the cashpoints here (Japan), at least the post office ones, take coins in a hopper and count 'em. Never tried taking out coins, I'll five it a go next time. |
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So are there actually people that still use paper money? |
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Well, sure. People who don't want a record of their
transactions. The Americans sent C130 cargo plane-
loads of paper money to Iraq, and are still trying to
work out where it went. |
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