In Russia, there has been a tendency to abandon cash. President of the Association of Russian Banks Garegin Tosunyan drew attention to this in an interview with radio Sputnik.
In his opinion, the Russians will continue to find themselves from cash, especially from coins. However, the main role in this process, the banker said, is played by regulators, which are “doing everything now to reduce the volume” of metallic money and remove it from circulation. He explained that the production of small coins is more expensive than their face value, and penny coins have actually gone out of circulation, but ruble coins will remain in wallets for now.
As for the ten-ruble coins, Tosunyan presented several scenarios. “Ten rubles is actually 10 cents. They will not go out of circulation at all soon. If there is a strengthening of the ruble, then the same ten rubles can already turn into 50 cents – this is a sufficient amount to continue to exist in metal form. If there is a depreciation and the same ten-ruble copper coin will not self-repay, then leaching will occur by 90 percent, “he is sure.
In July 2020, it was reported that the number of metallic money in circulation in Russia broke a record, reaching 68.2 billion coins. The most in circulation are ten-kopeck coins – 37 percent of the total. This is followed by a coin in denominations of one ruble (13 percent), one kopeck and 50 kopecks (11 percent each). A ten-ruble coin has a 10 percent share.
Earlier it became known that the majority of Russians agreed to abandon coins in denominations of one and five kopecks. Opponents of this decision (15 percent of those surveyed) indicated that the coin should remain for a number of reasons. Thus, 38 percent called the kopeck a historical and national symbol of Russia, 24 percent of respondents use coins for payments in shops and vehicles. In addition, 20 percent believe that pennies help teach children how to save money, and 10 percent said they save money with small coins.