Estonia avoided the cost of minting coins by encouraging the public to put coins back into circulation. The Isle of Man, though reluctantly, kept the smallest denomination coins in circulation at the request of consumers, albeit at the expense of minting them. Some EU countries have also abandoned the smallest denomination of euro cents due to production costs.
Recently, Estonia announced that it has run out of enough 1 cent and 2 cent euro coins, and there are currently two months of small denomination coins available, so there is no need to produce more for the time being. The Bank of Estonia has proposed to introduce rounding rules for these two minimum denomination coins, and the Ministry of Finance has sent the proposal to relevant groups for comment. If rounding is implemented, the final purchase will be affected. Only cash purchases will be rounded.
The Baltic Times has commented that the 1 and 2 cent coins have a significant impact on the environment and rarely return to circulation. It has been suggested that the manufacture of these denomination coins is a waste of natural resources and harmful to both people and the environment. The coins are made up of 3% copper and 97% zinc, and the main raw material is derived from primary ore.
Google responded to the question of whether cash is environmentally friendly, saying that using cash is more environmentally responsible than digital payments because it uses sustainable resources. This is contrary to what card companies and banks say. The cashless society that many people look forward to is not environmentally friendly.
Last September, Estonia launched a campaign to encourage people to take out their coins from home. Post offices in Tallinn Jarve and Kvartali shopping malls in Tartu began to accept these small coins unconditionally. The goal of collecting one million coins was achieved in ten days. There is now a small service fee for exchanging additional coins. The amount of coins that Estonian banks put in each year has been described as "two wagons".
In the third quarter of 2023, ** banks issued about 6 million coins with a face value of about 2.4 million euros, of which 46% were 1 cent and 2 cent euro coins. A total of 2.8 million pieces were issued, with a total weight of 74 tons. During the same period, commercial banks returned about 1.3 million coins, worth about 700,000 euros to ** bank, 15% more than in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, ** banks issued about 7.7 million banknotes with a face value of about 25.5 billion euros. At the same time, about 6.71 million banknotes were returned to ** banks, with a total value of 2400 million euros. An estimated 880,000 banknotes that were not fit for recirculation were destroyed.
Cash withdrawals from ATMs decreased in the third quarter, with about 5.9 million cards taken out with a face value of about 95.7 billion euros, 6 percent lower than in the prior-year quarter. Cash deposits were flat year-on-year.
Coins and banknotes issued in Estonia are in the same denominations as other eurozone member states, including 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 1 and 2 euro coins, as well as 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 and 200 euro banknotes. The 500 euro banknote has not been issued since 2019, but the denomination remains legal tender.