THE FATE OF THE 1 YEN
COIN – WHEN WILL IT LOSE ITS LUSTRE IN JAPAN?
Next
time you are having lunch with your Japanese colleagues, and have one of those
awkward moments where no-one has a good topic to tide over until the food
arrives, try asking them their thoughts on the 1 yen coin. Half of the Japanese
will never really gave it any thought (i.e. they could never think of not
having it), and the other half will tell you that “you can’t just not make the one yen coin”. Dig a little deeper, and ask them why? It is
here where you find deeply ingrained, and somewhat unfounded Nihonjin-ness come
out – Japan is still mero-mero in love with their yen, and bringing up its abolishment brings
gains us a little more insight into just how close the Japanese individuals are
in their way of thinking when it comes to matters close to home (read this anecdote if you read Japanese, it
expresses the sentiment of many people in Japan towards the 1 yen coin).
While the rest of the developed world (apart from the USA
– still shadowed by the imperial system) moves away from their smallest
denominations for convenience sake and because of their drastic decline in
purchasing power over the last 30 years, for many Japanese people, the silvery pika-pika aluminium
of the 1 yen coin and its nature as the base of Japan’s currency and economy
make it hard for them to let go. In some ways it is the most pure of the
Japanese coins (it is “one”, and 100% aluminium), and despite mentally groaning
about it when they fiddle in their purses, people still surprisingly love to
use it. 99 yen stores, and in general prices ending with 98 and 99 JPY are
still incredibly common, even in retail stores where the majority of the
transactions could be expected in cash, and customers will without fail diligently
wait for their 1-2 yen change to be handed back over the counter, even if it
means waiting for the cashier to fumble and break out a roll of new coins.
Australia,
Brazil, Finland, Israel, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and
England have all abolished at least their smallest denomination in the last 20
years (several had 2 cent equivalent coins, which have gone as well). The
latest country to be left penniless (literally!) is Canada, and as the most
recent example of permanent cessation of production of the smallest
denomination, it is interesting to look at some of the reasons given by their
legislators when they announced their decision on March 29th 2012.
Indeed,
the purchasing power of the Canadian penny now has less than 1/20th of when it
was first produced. The recent announcement described the penny as a “burden to
the economy”, actually costing 1.6 cents to make one of them! The pamphlet
outlining the change to the public reveals that the government is losing $11
million a year just on production costs, and that is not including the wasted
time and frustration of those who have to use it, and count it in business
transactions and banks all over the country. The estimated total burden for
keeping the penny in Canada is now in excess of $150 million.
The
rational solution is easy (to implement and to understand by the public), and
has been proven (see above) as a widely accepted method of ridding the country
of the production and management overheads and the burden on the economy – not
to mention the teeth-clenching hair-pulling frustration that it gives
consumers, businesses and banks alike.
So, how is this being dealt with in Japan? Well.. It isn’t
really. The 1 yen coin seems to have a somewhat sacred presence here. That’s
not to say that people dont complain about it – they dont hold back any monku on
that. But just as a wife complains about her husband (or their 35 year old son
who still lives at home), and just as he is still loved (tolerated?), the
Japanese society keeps clinging to their beloved 1 yen coin and seemingly dread
the day that it will walk out the door.
Alongside the emotional attachment to the 1 yen coin,
there are other potentially stronger factors that could yet lead to its demise,
more quickly than people may realize. In 1997, when Japan raised consumption
tax to an easier and more rounded number (5%), the actual demand for 1 yen
coins decreased overnight. With the expected rise to 10% in the coming years,
and the further proliferation of denshi-money (eMoney/cashless
transactions), demand is expected to drop to all time lows. In fact, in 2011,
for the first time in 43 years since the first minting of the current design,
the Mint of Japan didn’t even produce a single 1
yen coin for general circulation. And, for good reasons..
The 1 yen coin costs far more than 1 yen to produce. In
fact, it costs between 1.6 and 1.8 yen, nearly double the face value to produce
one of those little buggers. Even so, there have always been, and still are far
more 1 yen coins produced than any other coin! The aluminium in each coin alone
costs around 0.7 yen, and the rest of the cost is for production and
distribution. Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting reported in a 2003 analysis
that producing a 1 yen coin created a 13 yen overall loss for Japan!
Keeping the coin in circulation by changing its size
and/or material to something cheaper is out of the question for now as well, as
there is a law
that sets the weight and size of all coins in Japan. Interestingly, the 1 yen
coin is exactly 1 gram in weight, and made of pure aluminium, per law. Hence,
even today many people save their pennies (yennies?) as a convenient way to
calibrate their weight measurement scales at home.
The ever popular discount retail store, Don
Quijote (ドン・キホーテ) has for the last 10 or more years taken matters of dealing
with the stress of 1 yen coins into their own hands. They have a box of them at
every cash register, and basically allow customers to use up to 4 of them with
every transaction, effectively eliminating the need for customers to receive 1
yen coins ever in their change, or fumble for them in their wallet. It is
brilliant, both service and marketing wise, and it is hard to fathom why more
businesses haven’t cottoned on to this idea.
What do you think… will the yen, go the same way as the sen did,
way back in 1953? (A sen is 1/100th of a Yen, and used to be minted in Japan as
currency). What will it take for the Japanese people to realize that almost the
whole developed world (except the USA) has deemed it necessary to get rid of
this burden on society?
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