2016-03-16 Wed

Tim Worstall, a prominent columnist at Forbes has a rather different way to look at the recent unrest caused due to discontinuing the printing of high-value bank notes. His latest column is titled “If Most 500 Euro Bills Are In Russia Then It Shouldn’t Be Scrapped”, which mentions that producing them is extremely profitable for the entity that issues them.

He explains the concept of “seigniorage,” which talks about the profit made by the bank in printing money. He says that a the cost of printing a note is far less than its actual face value and hence any note that goes abroad and stays abroad is pure profit. This according to him proves that printing high-denomination euros for use in Russia is one of the most profitable businesses on the continent.