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#19643 02/22/01 09:08 PM
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Fiberbabe comments: ...my pet, the two dollar bill (good for you for carrying one, Faldage!)...

I plead innocent. I have it purely by chance. I stopped off at the Co-op after chorus last night and paid for my small purchase with one dollar bills. The checkout clerk commented that she had gotten two two dollar bills earlier and couldn't get rid of them (I don't know why she had to get rid of them) and I offered to buy one from her (I still had a bunch of ones) since the subject had come up in some other context.


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There's an eagle on the back with maybe some mountains and stars of the number of states that were in the Union at the time of Lewis and Clark's little cross country jaunt.

Oh boy, more Ohio propaganda for me. The Louisiana Purchase was made in 1803, the same year Ohio was admitted as a state. Lewis and Clark began their journey shortly thereafter and it wasn't until 1812 that the next state, Louisiana, was admitted. So there are 17 stars on the coin, because Ohio is the 17th state.

And along with the 50 State Quarters Program. Had they started it in 2000 instead of 1999, which would have been logical, Ohio would have had their coin come out in March of 2003, the bicentennial and same month of Ohio's admittance. Oh well . . . Although, Ohio's coin is coming out the year that the Lincoln Memorial thinks is its bicentennial. The Lincoln Memorial has the states' names and year of admittance carved around the top. For some reason it has 1802 for Ohio.


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Well done on the English coins, of troy. Only one mistake, a florin was two shillings not ten. I can't remember for sure now whether there was a ten shilling coin before decimalisation. I think it was a ten shilling note. There was also a groat, which was fourpence, but that died out a couple of hundred years ago.

Bingley


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NZers have the highest rate of ETPOS usage in the world, and almost the lowest rate of ATM usage in the developed world.

Max, I agree about the highest level of EFT-POS usage here - I generally don't have more than 50c in my pocket. A friend of mine who has a shop in Dunedin says that between 85 and 90 percent of his turnover is via EFT-POS.

But I'd like to see your evidence for lowest rate of ATM usage. There are FIFTEEN of them, I'm told, in Lambton Quay in Wellington alone although I've never counted them. This is believed to be the highest concentration of ATMs in the world. I've had to hunt high and low in cities in Europe and the Strine to find an ATM. You just about trip over 'em here. Que pasa, senor?



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But I'd like to see your evidence for lowest rate of ATM usage.

Peccavi, mea maxima culpa. I simply parroted what I saw on a news bulletin about three nights ago. It centred on the significant decline in NZer's use of ATMs. There are indeed an awful lot of them, but since every bank bar one now charges disloyalty fees of up to $2 for using machines other theirs, it seems Kiwis are abandoning the use of ATMs. The piece gave both the factoids I shamelessly propagated, along with mentioning one datum I could concur with from personal experience, to wit, that many people use efpos purchases at supermarkets to get cash rather than going to an ATM. The most amusing part of the bulletin was listening to a bank rep. trying first to deny that there was a trend away from ATM use, and then trying to put a positive spin on it, one that omitted any acknowledgement that exorbitant fees might conceivably be part of the reason. That was entertaining.


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>Cash Machines

There has been such a fuss about disloyalty charges by banks, especially in rural areas where they have closed so many branches that a lot of the charges have been lifted (doubtless they have found other ways of charging us). I think they are also worried about keping customers in the light of the growth of internet banking.


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I take it that ETPOS stands for electronic transfer point of sale or something like that. We call it Interac or Direct Payment here. It's very popular and all but the very smallest of business have it. (At our Taekwondo club we still have to pay for our membership by cheque/cash, for example.)

Question to US'ns: I've heard that direct payment didn't really take off in the US. True or false? Do you personally use cash a lot? I'm all about Direct Payment. (Forgive the younger-brother-like grammar there; it fit.) Then (as long as you have money in the bank account) you never find yourself with not quite enough cash for all your groceries or whatever.

However, I have a related makes-my-teeth-itch thing: People tend to say "Interact". Notice that above, I spelled it as it is spelled on the cards - NO "T" at the end!!!!!!!!!!! None, not even a little one!!!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!


#19650 02/23/01 02:06 PM
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My ATM card was recent made into a "direct payment" card-- and I cut it up and sent it back!

I tend to keep a high balance in my checkbook-- (i also have high deductables on car and house insurance) and i do not want to have my ATM/Debit card "cloned" and my account cleared. Its was a big problem in California, on of the first states to begin to use ET POS. I use cash or credit cards. If my credit card is cloned, i am liable for the first $50-- I can afford that!.

What happened in CA was, in wascarwashes and other small businesses that work with "part time" help, and very little direct Management, the employees set up small cam corders in the drop ceiling tiles, to record someone pin number-- and then used the "print out of purchches (which included account numbers, but no "pins") and synced the two-- there are some places i am told where you don't even have to put in a pin! It swipe and go!
I also bank at Citi-- so there are thousand of branches-- so when i was in Japan-- i went "downtown" and used my ATM to get more cash. Citi doesn't add a fee if you use an other bank*, but can't void other banks fees. I rarely end up paying them, since in NY Citi has millions of branches-- including some that are just machine branches--no back services except ATM's.
*This is not a plug for citi bank-- i get great service because i have a "High Balance"-- which i think is weird! my high balance is the "Balance due" (on my mortgage) because its over $10,000, i am considered a "high level" user! It will be years before I fall back into the catagory of less than $10,000 in combined balances in my accounts! it not hard to have a balance due on a mortgage ove $10,000!


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Okay, I found a website for the Canadian bills, too, if anyone is interested:
http://www.wallis.com/cdn_bills/
Then you can see just how colourful they are.
And for more imagery, I can now tell you who's on them:
$5 - Wilfred Laurier - 2nd prime minister (I think), and a bird (belted kingfisher) on the reverse side
$10 - John A. Macdonald - 1st prime minister, and peacekeeping/Remembrance Day stuff on the back (this is brand new, came out last month) (the old one had an osprey on the back)
$20 - the Queen, plus a loon on the back
$50 - William Lyon Mackenzie King (prime minister during WW II, I think) plus a snowy owl on the back
$100 - Sir Robert Borden (prime minister, don't remember when), plus a Canada goose on the back

They have just stopped making $1000 bills. These had the Queen on them. (I had a bath towel modelled after one.) All the bills also have pieces of the Parliament Buildings on the front. Funny about all the animals - I had noticed the animal theme on the coins but I hadn't really noticed it so much on the bills until I wrote up this description. As I recall, the $2 bill had robins on the back, before it was replaced by the coin. I guess it was a bird series.


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Question to US'ns: I've heard that direct payment didn't really take off in the US. True or false? Do you personally use cash a lot?

I get my paycheck direct deposited, I have, for the last two years gotten my Federal tax refund EFTed to me. I generally buy my gas with debit/ATM card but not my groceries; there is a charge for the latter but not the former. I do direct payment on three of my monthly bills (out of eight??).


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