Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is seeking public feedback on the proposed new legal tender limit for coins.
Under the Currency Act, limits are placed on the amount of each coin denomination that can be used for payment, which are known as legal tender limits and the rationale for having them is to minimise the payee’s inconvenience and cost in handling large quantities of low denomination currency.
Under current law, the limits on using coins for payment are $2 per denomination for 5-cent, 10-cent and 20-cent coins, and S$10 for 50-cent coins. While, there are no limits for payment by S$1 coins.
MAS stressed that payee is obliged to accept payment up to these limits but may reject payments exceeding these limits.
In 2014, two cases of the use of coins for payment of large amounts were reported in the media. Following these reports, some members of the public expressed the need to place a legal tender limit on one-dollar coins to prevent similar abuses. MAS has since completed a review of the legal tender limits for the various denominations of coins, including the one-dollar coin.
MAS has since completed a review of the legal tender limits for the various denominations of coins, including the one-dollar coin.
The Authority said that it is proposing a limit of 10 coins per denomination across all denominations in a single transaction, which means that a payer can use up to 10 pieces each of 5-cent, 10-cent, 20-cent, 50-cent and S$1 coins per transaction
MAS is therefore, inviting comments from interested parties on the proposed new legal tender limit for coins.
However, it said, “Please note that all submissions received will be published and attributed to the respective respondents unless they expressly request MAS not to do so. As such, if respondents would like their whole submission or part of it, or their identity, or both, to be kept confidential, please expressly state so in the submission to MAS.”
In addition, MAS stated that it reserves the right not to publish any submission received where MAS considers it not in the public interest to do so, such as where the submission appears to be libellous or offensive.
If members of the public are interested in filing written comments, Please submit them by 06 April 2017 to:
Currency Department
Monetary Authority of Singapore
109 Pasir Panjang Rd, Currency House
Singapore 118536
Fax: (65) 63494700
Email: [email protected]
Electronic submission is encouraged. MAS encourages members of the public to use this suggested Submission format for the submission to ease collation efforts.