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Time for a wallet makeover
December 16, 2006
Are the contents of your wallet looking a little drab? If you’re in the US, undoubtedly, with your currency, regardless of denomination, all having the same boring shape and dreary green-and-black color scheme. That may change, however, since a federal judge has ruled that US currency violates a law that prohibits discrimination by the government because of a disability—in this case, vision impairment. Possible remedies include the introduction of currency having Braille lettering, microperforations, or varying sizes according to denomination, the Associated Press reports.
Sounds good, but the Justice Department is fighting the judge’s ruling, because the change would be too expensive and create a hardship for the vending-machine industry.
Now I for one am surprised that the government is going to bat for the narrow and widely despised vending-machine constituency. Is there a voter out there who hasn’t at one time or another been robbed by a vending machine? But beyond that, I question whether or not the change truly represents a hardship for the industry, and it might even help. Today’s machines seem to have trouble with even the most slightly disfigured bill. Microperferations or varying sizes should if anything help improve accuracy and minimize lost sales.
There are certainly no technical barriers to accommodating currency changes. Coin Acceptors Inc., for example, touts its position as a “world leader in the design and manufacturing of payment solutions for the automated point-of-sale industry,” in Europe, Australia, Asia, North America, and Latin America, and it claims its products are programmable to accommodate future currency changes. (To learn about how Coin Acceptors’ engineers test their products, click here.) If it can accommodate euro notes, it can handle an upgraded dollar.
There is an interesting discussion on the proposed currency changes going on over at the Majikthise blog. It pits what I guess you could call the “do gooders” against the “cost/benefit analyzers”; the latter prefer what they claim would be lower-cost solutions such as providing the visually impaired with gizmos that they could carry with them to identify bills. The former provide an almost Rumsfeld-esque view: the industry should deal with the currency the government gives it, not with the currency it might wish to have.
I'm with the "do gooders" on this one. The industry can adapt and will ultimately be better off for it.
Posted by Rick Nelson on December 16, 2006 | Comments (2)
