Pennies still circulating?

[Foz]

We all know that the penny is no longer being produced and has been taking out of circulation.
What was interesting today is that I made a payment at ATB that ended with one cent and thought it would be rounded down. I.e. $4.01
After giving $20 cash I received $15.99 with change including 4 pennies.
Isn't the bank suppose to take them out of circulation? Never seen pennies being handed out for years!

Wondering if the bank is trying to continue to generate more revenue from this.
Sounds like a "Office Space" plot.

[holden]

I read this as penis's still circumsicing

[roopi]

What did they say when you asked them why they gave you pennies?

[dirtsniffer]

That's weird that they gave you pennies.

[dj_rice]

Waiting on Zenops

[Sugarphreak]

...

[Foz]

Originally posted by roopi
What did they say when you asked them why they gave you pennies?

I was surprised and asked. The teller said they still do. She didn't manually count the change but rather after generating payment receipt their cash dispenser automatically dispensed the coins,so this is more interesting.

[speedog]

Originally posted by Foz
We all know that the penny is no longer being produced and has been taking out of circulation.
What was interesting today is that I made a payment at ATB that ended with one cent and thought it would be rounded down. I.e. $4.01
After giving $20 cash I received $15.99 with change including 4 pennies.
Isn't the bank suppose to take them out of circulation? Never seen pennies being handed out for years!

Wondering if the bank is trying to continue to generate more revenue from this.
Sounds like a "Office Space" plot.

Pennies are still legal tender and although the production of them in Canada has stopped, I do not believe that it's ever been announced that they're being taken out of circulation. Certainly there's been announcements that certain denominations of paper bills are being taken out of circulation but haven't heard the same about the penny.

[ZenOps]

Nickels (including loonies and toonies, which technically are just slightly larger nickels) have been actively melted since 2003.

http://www.mint.ca/store/news/royal-...=#.V-0WH4WcE2w

Pennies were on official record "recovered" starting the day they were taken out of circulation, but I can imagine in some back room somewhere it was a decade ago.

"Revenue from the Alloy Recovery Program, through which the metal content of alloy coins collected through the recycling program is recovered and sold, increased 32.0% to $6.6 million from $5.0 million in the third quarter of 2014."

So they make about $6 million every three months or so by melting down the nickels and pennies, nickels are replace with "irons", pennies are simply melted. Since the mint is a crown corporation, so you can pretty much figure out who "they" are and where the proceeds go.

Its the ultimate game of three card monty. When the crown gets a real nickel mixed in with change, they simply take it and replace it with an iron. They did the exact same thing back in the Roman days, they would change out silver coinage with copper filled coinage - and in about three decades the metal that the powerful elite wanted was gone from circulation.

Lets not forget: Nickel is 1500x rarer than Iron. Gold is about 16x rarer than silver.

[jdmXSI]

Originally posted by Sugarphreak
More upsetting is the fact that TD is pulling all of their coin machines

I went to deposit the money from my garage sale, and they made me roll it... it felt like 1998 all over again

Apparently some American has launched a law suit because they are not 100% accurate, so TD has decided to pull all the machines. Atleast that was the story I got when I asked.

[NoSup4U]

Originally posted by Foz

I was surprised and asked. The teller said they still do. She didn't manually count the change but rather after generating payment receipt their cash dispenser automatically dispensed the coins,so this is more interesting.

As per Retail Trade Council;

Will banks still be issuing pennies after February 4?

The Royal Canadian Mint will cease the distribution of pennies to financial institutions on February 4, 2013. Most banks are also expected to stop distributing pennies on this date.

I guess ATB didn't get the message? Pretty vague info, but odd that they still issue.

They are still considered legal tender, however, no one is required to accept them, aside from a financial institute when returning pennies you may have stashed in your piggy bank, and even then, they may require a certain amount.

And Speedog, yes, it was announced the idea is to remove them from circulation.

[speedog]

The difference between the penny and the paper bills is that it was suggested the the penny be withdrawn while the paper bills were demanded to be withdrawn per banking people I know. I could be totally out to lunch on this though.