2016-09-24 Sat

Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has suggested that Britain's traditional 1p coin should be scrapped as he thinks that these coins are almost worthless. When he was asked by some schoolchildren why there’s a need for these 1p coins, he replied that the Royal Mint should be thinking about the answer that and the Bank of England is responsible for issuing banknotes.

Small denominations have been abolished in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. Australia got done with one and two cent pieces in 1992, Brazil scrapped the one centavo coin in 2005 and Norway did the same with the 50 ore coin in 2012. Mr. Carney told that when the coins were withdrawn, people were given a chance to donate them to charity.

He would focus on keeping the inflation low, stable, predictable and see to it that it somehow averages 2% a year. He stated that a penny today won’t buy you anything and it is worth getting rid of it.

The penny was introduced to British Coinage by King Offa in 785. The modern penny was introduced in 1971 with a shifted decimalisation. The half-penny was withdrawn in the year 1984.