This is mostly prompted by the new plastic money that we Canadians are in the process of getting, but we’ve had new bill designs in the past and if I’m not mistaken you folk south of the border have had minor changes to your currency in the past (I seem to recall seeing small amounts of non-green on your money recently, or was I hallucinating?) so my question would apply in that case as well.
Do manufacturers of vending machines that take currency get advance samples of new bills so that they can have their machines reprogrammed as soon as possible after the currency becomes publically available, or do they have to get all their machines reprogrammed REAL FAST when the new currency comes out? Seems like it would be a royal pain in the ass for an awful lot of people getting all the machines fixed all at once (then again, a lot of things about the government are a royal pain, so what else is new?). Or alternatively, is some sort of “template” distributed that defines enough of the bill for the machines to identify them without being actual currency?
OK - My question stands for your currency as well. Do vending machine and money counter machine manufacturers get free previews or some sort of templates ahead of time?
Yes they do. Here in the UK, most vending machines only take coins, as we have higher denomination coins than the US. The most recent widespread change was the introduction of the £2 coin, which was meant to happen in 1997. However, I remember that there was a delay because the actual production coins turned out not to match the prototypes that had been given out to the vending machine manufacturers, so they had to recall them. The actual launch of the coins was delayed by a few months in the end.
I had a conversation with the rep who is responsible for the vending machines in our buildings. He said they love the gold dollars because bills always jam up the machines. He said it’s his view that the industry would love to see the dollar bill go away because their maintenance costs would drop dramatically.
Or it good go the other way around. One reason the US has such a hard time creating a dollar coin that people will accept is that every new design has to create the same “signature” as the old Susan B. Anthony coin, so that vending machines that take the dollar coin don’t have to be changed.
I remember new $1 bills in the US coming out, and there were many vending machines that didn’t accept them at first. I don’t know if any large vending companies had previews…but it certainly wasn’t a clean, seamless transition.
The machine you are referring to is called a “bill validator” and it’s actually made separately from the rest of the machine, by companies that specialize in that sort of thing. Various models are designed with various applications in mind; vending machines are a bigt one, but bigger markets still include gaming (slot machines) and self-serve grocery and department store checkouts.
I saw the new Canadian $50s months before they were formally released; one of my customers makes bill validators. They get advance copies of currency from all over the world quite some time before release so as to reprogram the validators’ optical recognition software.
Huh? AFAIK, the US $1 bill hasn’t changed since long before vending machines took bills. Wikipedia agrees with me, the last change was in 1969, and then it was only changing a Latin phrase to English.
Did you mean some other denomination? Or perhaps you were thinking of when bill validators were first introduced? They were quite tempermental and rejected lots of perfectly valid bills.
There are separate companies that build the currency validators, and then sell them t vending machine companies. These companies work with the Bureau of Engraving, and I believe they may actually get advance samples of new bills to test their machines.
Reprogramming the machines is not much trouble. They are all electronic, so once the company has used the advance samples of new bills to program their machine, it’s just a matter of copying that new version of the program to all their machines. Quite similar to when software companies release a new patch for their programs. Many vending machines have phone line connections to the vending company (especially those that accept credit cards), and some f them can download new currency programs via them. Other machines have to be manually updated by company technicians. But they do this periodically, anyway, as they are constantly updating their programs to better detect counterfeit bills, as printing & xeroxing technology constantly improves.
Cool! Thanks people!
I was disappointed - got my usual $300 withdrawal from a TD Canada Trust ATM yesterday (in most cases I prefer cash to debit; helps me control my spending and touch wood I have never been robbed or pickpocketed) hoping to see the new 50s, and it just spat out 20s. Hmph. Maybe next time.