This rounds physical currency to the nearest $0.05, effectively. Why not round everything to the nearest $0.1? The math and adjustments (changes to every printed price, etc.) would be simpler. How much for the wine? "$19.9". It seems much simpler to me, though I'm sure it's been discussed ...
Is there some item that would be problematic to round to $0.1? I suppose anything that is fractionally priced at ≤$0.05 is now would have a minimum purchase of 2. Items bought in bulk could be priced fractionally.
We already round off fractional pennies all the time, e.g. in securities market prices, tax calculations, gasoline prices, etc. That's not a problem. And any electronic purchase could be for fractional amounts - but why?
(Once upon a time, you probably could sell the idea to IT people by pointing out how much memory and bandwidth it would save.)
In Hong Kong, it's very common now to see prices with just a single digit after the decimal point. That said, they haven't had a 5c coin since 1989 and HK$0.1 isn't worth much more than US$0.01.
For me, one of the nicest currency units right now is the Taiwanese Dollar - 31 TWD to 1 USD and 40 TWD to 1 GBP. They don't have any smaller coins now, so it's nice that everything is in integer units, but the numbers aren't crazily large.
Things are still often priced in €xx.99 in Ireland, but since the 1 and 2 Eurocent coins are all MIA, if you pay in cash, you'll be paying the full €xy.00. Most of my transactions are by card, though, and thus not subject to rounding.
So why? Maybe the vendors reckon it will work out in their favor this way.
Haha, as a Brit, I have quite a few eurocent coins in my foreign loose change drawer.
Also, as a Brit, if I bought something for £9.99 and gave them a £10, I'd expect change. If they said they didn't have any 1p or 2p coins, I'd expect to receive a 5p coin instead. And when I say expect, I've been offered that a couple of times in the past in that situation, I've never had to ask for it.
Is there some item that would be problematic to round to $0.1? I suppose anything that is fractionally priced at ≤$0.05 is now would have a minimum purchase of 2. Items bought in bulk could be priced fractionally.
We already round off fractional pennies all the time, e.g. in securities market prices, tax calculations, gasoline prices, etc. That's not a problem. And any electronic purchase could be for fractional amounts - but why?
(Once upon a time, you probably could sell the idea to IT people by pointing out how much memory and bandwidth it would save.)