r/Showerthoughts • u/Ghumketu • 13d ago
Casual Thought Currency notes should be made smaller, like a credit card, to save paper and space.
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u/MyUsernameIsAwful 13d ago
I think credit cards and the like have already made paper money a negligible concern.
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u/Ghumketu 13d ago
Worldwide, over 150 billion new paper currency notes are printed and reprinted every year to replace worn-out money.
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u/ravens-n-roses 13d ago
That's 18 bills per person.
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u/elduarto 10d ago
Yes with a huge asterisk. While in London cash is basically non existant, in Germany they are hesitant on not using cash. In China cash is just a souvernir, while in Latin America, India and Africa, cash is king
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u/mystlurker 10d ago
India, at least in the cities, has significantly digitized. Even street vendors take UPI. Their government also cancelled all bills over roughly $20 dollars and is on a significant push to kill the shadow cash economy.
I would not include them in the cash is king bucket.
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u/ieatyoshis 10d ago
Likewise with much of Africa, though the continent is so large and diverse that I’ve no idea which is most common.
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u/ravens-n-roses 10d ago
My point was mostly that it's not like there's a glut of cash. I think no matter how to divide it up it ends up being a fairly reasonable amount of money per person in the context of their cultural use of cash. Like maybe it's more like 50 bills per German and 2 per person in China, but if it gets used up in Germany that makes sense.
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u/Rusty-Shackleford 3d ago
18 paper bills per person is probably nothing compared to the amount of trash the average American generates in a week just eating fast food on their lunch breaks. Also, it's 2026, I use eBilling for everything, and I still have a foot tall pile of junk mail by my front door table.
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u/evileyeball 10d ago
Polymer notes BABY POLYMER NOTES BABY
You don't have to reprint worn out paper when you have POLYMER NOTES BABY13
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u/Plenty-Giraffe6022 10d ago
Australia doesn't print any.
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u/Powwer_Orb13 10d ago
A lot of countries actually don't anymore. With the rise in popularity of polymer bills, and the massive expense of setitng up a mint capable of manufacturing them, many countries now outsource minting to other countries that have already built polymer capable mints. Coins are still frequently minted locally though, as that's a lot less intensive of a process.
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u/Leprichaun17 10d ago
What?
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u/charleswj 10d ago
Plastic
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u/Boatster_McBoat 10d ago
Polymer, my friend, which is Australian for classy plastic.
Also when you leave $20 in your jeans it comes out of the wash still useable
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u/charleswj 10d ago
Also when you leave $20 in your jeans it comes out of the wash still useable
So does paper money, it's not regular paper
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u/Boatster_McBoat 10d ago
Previous Australian currency didn't come through well
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u/DryerCoinJay 10d ago
Don’t let him fool you, washing machines can decimate American currency. It’s just made of a blend of cotton and paper so it’s slightly more resilient. It’s nowhere near as durable as Australian currency.
-a professional coin critic, critic
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u/charleswj 10d ago
I was going to point out how many times I've washed dollars with no ill effect, but then I saw your username and feel like I just need to defer to you
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u/Leprichaun17 10d ago
So? Despite using polymer, they're still printed. By Note Printing Australia.
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u/Plenty-Giraffe6022 10d ago
It's not paper money.
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u/JDeegs 10d ago
Paper is not the only thing that can be printed, mate
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u/Plenty-Giraffe6022 10d ago
True, but the OP's post is about paper money.
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u/JDeegs 10d ago
ok now looking back up the thread i'm confused why you chimed in about australia not printing paper money; it doesn't make their statement any less true.
and since australia's not the only nation to not use paper for money, why only mention australia?→ More replies (0)1
u/lt_Matthew 10d ago
Cuz they're under the assumption that it was ever paper to begin with. It's still called paper money even if it isn't actually.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 10d ago
Ive carried enough bills that this was a problem once when I was buying a car. Never had an issue with the size of bills, I think they're perfect otherwise you lose them too easily.
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u/rosen380 10d ago
I went with my cousin to buy a car, private party, with cash that he was paying $22000 for. He had 200x $100 with the rest being mostly $20s.
Arrange them in two stacks you are are looking at: 6.1"x5.2"x0.7" -- about the size of a mass-market ~300 page paperback book.
Now when he went with me to buy a private party car, the seller was asking $12k, I felt it was worth $10k if there were no notable issues with it, and if there were and enough to knock my valuation down below $8k, I'd just have walked (wasn't looking for a project car).
So, I showed up with an $8k cashier's check, a $2k cashier's check, a $1k cashier's check, nine $100s and five $20s.
Any price we might agree on in the range of $8-10k (at least in $20 increments) all fitting in my wallet.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 10d ago
Its crazy to me that yall still use checks lol. But 100$ is the biggest bill you got right? I got 200chf and i was surprised the bank didn't give me a couple of 1000chf bills.
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u/rosen380 10d ago
A cashier's check is a check drawn on the bank's funds and can be cashed by the person it is made out to (or the person that took out the cashier's check).
So, I can carry $9000 in those two cashier's checks and if I lose them (or they get stolen), they are pretty useless to anyone but those two parties (and can be canceled). If instead I'm walking around with $9000 in cash, well if it is lost or stolen, I'm pretty much shit-out-of-luck.
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u/thenasch 9d ago
Technically $1000 and $10,000 bills are still legal tender but they're not really in circulation. You can't get one from a bank.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 8d ago
I wouldnt count bank notes that are worth several times their face value, anyone using these would be a fkn idiot xD
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u/Snoo63 10d ago
Guessing the "Couple of 1000chf bills" is a typo, and you mean a couple of 100chf bills?
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u/NightmareWokeUp 10d ago
No typo
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u/Snoo63 10d ago
You got two hundred Swiss Francs from the bank, and you are surprised that the bank didn't give you a couple of thousand Swiss Franc bills?
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u/NightmareWokeUp 10d ago
I see how it would come across like it but no i got 8k to buy a car and they gave me 200s instead of 1000s
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u/fiveordie 10d ago
They clearly meant 2000, one zero dropped. A couple of 1000 bills = 2000. Cmon dude you're being a Redditor ™️ right now.
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u/Havingfun922 7d ago
I use checks all the time, and I am not a boomer. I almost kinda prefer paying that way or with cash.
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u/Iescaunare 6d ago
Buying a car with cash is insane
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u/NightmareWokeUp 6d ago
Why? It was 100km away and a used car. That way i could close the deal instantly instead of going home, sending the money and having no guarantee.
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u/Iescaunare 6d ago
Bank transfer? If I tried to buy a car with cash, they'd probably call the police.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 6d ago
instant transfer wasnt available couple years ago. it was a shop, can't recall if they even prefered cash.
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u/Iescaunare 6d ago
I guess you're in America. You guys are a few decades behind on the whole money transfer thing.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 6d ago
Nope, i guesses you're from the us because why else wouldnt the other person accept cash?
We have like 30 different ways in which our currency is counterfit proof. No cotton candy money here.
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u/Iescaunare 6d ago
I'm not from the US, but Norway. We've largely moved away from cash, so only drug dealers and other criminals use cash.
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u/NightmareWokeUp 5d ago
Same for switzerland. I never carry cash anymore. However a car is more than my current debit card allows to pay per month. It was just easier that way, why does it bother you that much lmao.
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u/Iescaunare 5d ago
Because if someone offered to buy my car with a bag full of cash, I'd probably call the police
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u/Corporal_Nobby 13d ago
I am in India. I have stopped carrying my wallet. I use digital payments that doesn't cost anything. No need to worry about change at all.
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u/Protector109 13d ago
How are the streets of Ankh-Morpork nowadays?
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u/Corporal_Nobby 13d ago
Vimes' on patrol. So I say pretty safe. Also, no one messes with Angua
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u/pakcikzik 10d ago
Why would a commander be patrolling the streets. But then again, its Vimes haha
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u/Oxygene13 10d ago
Because he likes the feel of the cobbles through his cardboard shoe soles. He knows exactly where he is just by the pattern of stones and repairs.
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u/laplongejr 12d ago
As someone whose supermarket once ran cash-only after a city-wide Internet shortage, I'm terrified.
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u/charleswj 10d ago
You can go get some cash for the one time that happens
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u/laplongejr 10d ago
Not that easy in my country (Belgium), as ATMs are scarce... and at least in my town, usually out of money.
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u/charleswj 10d ago
I mean you can keep a small amount of cash at home and get it for an emergency grocery store run
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u/Front_Cat9471 11d ago
What about licenses and id and stuff?
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u/Corporal_Nobby 10d ago
All in my digital wallet. And everyone accepts digital photo of your licences and ids.
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u/justbiteme2k 11d ago
India has the world's largest biometric id programme. Accessed via the mAadhaar app.
By all accounts it's a good blueprint to follow if you want to introduce digital id in your country to your citizens.
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u/Snoo63 10d ago
Although I suppose it can be used to make automated mass surveillance easier?
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u/justbiteme2k 10d ago
Err, your government already knows what it knows about you. Plus you carry around a GPS and phone-tower tracked device everywhere you go that just happens to be full of apps tracking everything they can.
I'm not worried about adding another app.
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u/FartsLord 8d ago
What made you think it costs nothing? Visa charges retailers 1.78% + $0.08 and 2.81% + $0.25 for online transactions.
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u/iamnogoodatthis 11d ago
But they'd also be easier to lose. How often do you carry enough cash that you think "it's really annoying that these thin pieces of paper / plastic are taking up so much space"?
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u/l_larsen-876 1d ago
Smaller notes would save wallet footprint, but not stack height: 20 card-sized bills are still 20 layers. Denominations affect how many layers you carry more than the note dimensions do.
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u/EGarrett28 10d ago
At a certain size we lose them too easily. I have this problem with this ridiculous MicroSD card on my computer.
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u/Ghumketu 10d ago
Well, they are called Micro for a reason.
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u/EGarrett28 10d ago
There's no choice though, these laptops don't have even a normal size port for the larger cards (which are about the size of a quarter themselves).
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u/AstroCaptain 10d ago
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u/MegaEmailman 9d ago
I've been needing this exact product for genuinely years and it never occurred to me it might actually exist.
May your lobster always be buttery
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u/heyitscory 13d ago edited 13d ago
I guess.
Seems like a lot of wasted money in infrastructure built for the existing notes and new infrastructure that can't be backward compatible just so your crumpled cash takes up half as much volume in your wallet.
Of course, since the denomination and security features have to be reasonably large to still function as currency as well as the old bills, there's less room for pictures of dead guys with their dead guy baggage.
So that would be cool.
Hey, maybe we could do e-paper notes that you can fill up at the bank and adjust denomination, like Bitcoin paper wallets.
Or just a bigger bill than a hundo.
It's kind of annoying when you have to buy something for $8000 and that means counting out 80 of something like I'm a stripper filling my gas tank.
But, uh, don't do it like Bitcoin paper wallets.
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u/thehatteryone 10d ago
Better to live in a country with a developed banking system where instant, free, electronic payments mean not having to pay large sums in pieces of paper. Once I click through to "are you sure you're not being scammed, sending all this money to a new payee" warnings, the money is gone, it's yours and you can see it in your account, and there's no way I can claw that back.
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u/blue49 9d ago
Who pays $8,000 in cash? I live in a developing country and even in the provinces where I am, most of the large amount transactions are either direct bank/e-wallet transfers or checks.
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u/heyitscory 9d ago
Private party used car sales were what I had in mind.
There's just so many ways to get scammed with checks and banking apps, plus "Do you have PayPal? No, do you have Zelle? No, do you have Cash App?" etc.
Cash is simpler.
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u/blue49 9d ago
So there's no way to transfer between Paypal, Zelle, Cash App, and/or bank apps?
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u/heyitscory 9d ago
While your talking to a stranger who may be trying to sell you a stolen car or thinks you may try to scam them?
There's a lot of ways to send money. They all take time, effort, setting up an account and trust.
Meeting at a police station with cash makes it much less worrisome for both parties.
I never said it was the only way. It's just the simplest way, and the way most people prefer.
"Do you take Zelle?" might mean they don't want to deal with you. Everyone takes cash.
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u/blue49 9d ago
Huh. We also do private party (meaning person to person right?) purchases here. Like fb market place stuff and online fund transfers are more commonly used. The transfer is real time and you can immediately check if the funds arrives. I guess one reason is that our largest denomination cash is only the equivalent of 20usd.
But still, i don't understant how you think cash will prevent someone from scamming you? If you think they possibly stole the car, and you gave them cash for it, wouldn't you still be on the hook with no way to trace the car thief?
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u/rmill127 9d ago
People that don’t pay all their taxes.
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u/blue49 9d ago
Do you need to pay taxes on private sales?
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u/rmill127 9d ago
I was referring to how they got the money, not what they are buying. If you are making large sums of cash and do not want the government knowing about it, putting it in a bank is not a brilliant move. Instead you spend the cash.
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u/RamPamPam8 8d ago
Uruguay tried this with their 50 and 20 pesos notes. Made them smaller, out of some kind of plastic so that they'd never tear or get damaged in the wash or whatever.
Turns out it sucks. Old notes weren't going anywhere, so now you had 2 different "form factors" for the same notes, plus the plastic and smaller size made them difficult to handle. My mother works with change and she hates them, not only cus they pop up and become undone if you tie them up incorrectly, but also because they feel like monopoly money.
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u/Casiquire 10d ago
I believe that's not far off the size of 5€. With euros, the bills get physically larger as the denomination increases
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u/Worried-Blueberry-95 7d ago
not for long. later this year the new design for the notes will be approved and manufacturing of same sized polymer bills to start in 2029/30
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u/charleswj 10d ago
That sounds terrible
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u/yvrelna 10d ago
It's great for accessibility for the blind. They usually rely on telling apart money by their shape and size.
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u/charleswj 10d ago
Yea I'm aware, and I'm not downplaying the benefits to the blind, but for the rest of us, and even the blind, it makes it more of a pain to handle and store.
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u/thehatteryone 10d ago
You don't have to be blind to benefit from it being easy to differentiate between different denominations. Read on some sub yesterday about someone accidentally tipping their food delivery driver $100 when they meant to give them a much smaller bill; ain't no way I'm giving my driver a £50 note when I meant to give them a £5, even if I blindly pulled it from my pocket to put right into their hand.
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u/Casiquire 10d ago
Not really, they are easy to handle and count, and it prevents someone from giving you a stack of 5s with a 100 on top and trying to play it off
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u/SeraLermin 10d ago
It's actually super handy. As a European, I was always frustrated when I had to handle US dollars. Why are they all the same size and color? If I have ten bills, I have to sift through them and read the numbers on them, I can't just pick out the red one that's smaller than the blue ones and know it's a ten. With Euros, you know at a glance what you have.
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u/rosen380 10d ago
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/o78AAOSwO2VnGH1i/s-l1600.webp
Ignoring that the $2 and $1 are the same coloring ($2s don't typically end up getting used much anyways), they are all different hues. So if color works for you, then seems like that should be reasonably covered...?
That said, I'd have an easier time remembering that $100 is bigger than $10 than that "pale blue" is more than "yellow". So, I'd put that variation between denominations way down below the differences in sizes anyways.
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u/SeraLermin 10d ago
Then my memory might be failing me, because I recall them being very similar in color. Anyways, I think you're maybe overanalyzing this. If the bills are different sizes AND colors, a stack of different bills will have the larger ones peeking out behind the smaller ones, and color then helps to differentiate them at a glance. Nobody has ever had a hard time remembering five different colors (given that you've used them for more than a day). For same sized bills, you kinda have to leaf through them, which is annoying, especially once you start getting ones back as change.
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u/rosen380 10d ago
Hasn't been forever.
The $20s changed in 2003, $50s in 2004, $10s in 2006, $5s in 2008 and $100s in 2013
So, if you were in the US like 20 years ago, then it would have still been pretty new and plenty of older bills (without the background color differences) would have still been in circulation. The more recent the visit was, the less likely you would have seen the older style bills.
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That said, the conclusion of my post was exactly that, "So, I'd put that variation between denominations way down below the differences in sizes anyways."
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u/SeraLermin 10d ago
Ah that explains it, when I went my uncle gave me a few hundred USD he had found in his house from a trip in the 90s to spend. They were such a pain to use. Otherwise I mainly use electronic payments in this day and age.
Yeah I was just out here to disagree with the person who said "that sounds terrible".
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u/lt_Matthew 10d ago
The farthest extent the US is willing to go with accessible money is the ridges on the dime, quarter, and half dollar. And those ridges aren't necessarily for that.
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u/TrayLaTrash 8d ago
Would be a big infrastructure problem. Would have to change software and hardware for anything accepting of the new form factor. Atms, vending machines, etc.
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u/Zestymonserellastick 10d ago
Most currency isn't made out of paper. If it was it would be much too easy to counterfeit.
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u/UpstairsContest3781 10d ago
I think, part of the reason notes come in different sizes is so people with poor eyesight can tell them apart by touch. Shrink them all to card size and you lose that.
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u/Steve_Brandon 11d ago
Canadian bills haven't used paper at all in quite some time unless I'm mistaken and there's a Polymer tree.
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u/ignorantladd 9d ago
All notes and coins need to be of same size like a dime, with different values printed with some code
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u/automatorsassemble 4d ago
I think with the number of embedded security features that most currency notes have would make it difficult to scale down to credit card size and maintain. With watermarks, embedded strips, serial numbers and specialised artwork, a note that small would become impractical or less secure against counterfeiting
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u/Zikkan1 9d ago
Or just remove it. I haven't used cash for 15 years and it has never been an issue
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u/JefferyGoldberg 8d ago
How do you pay your drug dealers and strippers? They usually frown upon Venmo.
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u/derpsteronimo 11d ago
Cash is on its way out anyway, it wouldn't really make sense to invest all that into updating anything automated to work with new notes. A new design is one thing, that can likely be handled with a software update in many cases, but an entirely new form factor would cause a lot of hassle.
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u/ShowerSentinel 13d ago
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