Bank officials have insisted that the smallest coins in circulation in the UAE should remain legal tender even though some shops say they are rarely used.
The Central Bank of the UAE told Gulf News the 1fils, 5fils and 10fils coins were worth keeping.
However, shop managers say customers prefer to be given 25fils coins instead of the smaller denomination copper coins.
Paresh Buch from the finance department of Spinneys said use of the 5fils and 10fils coins was "very restricted" and the 1fils coin was not used at all.
"If customers give us these coins, we'll accept them because they are still legal tender, but normally customers don't carry them," he said.
Buch said Spinneys ordered batches of 5fils and 10fils coins from banks to give out as change to customers.
"The movement of these coins is only one way. Even if we give them out to the customers, I'm not sure they use them," he said.
It was worth keeping the coins, Buch said, since otherwise the supermarket would have to give out, for example, 25fils change when 15fils was due.
"If we started having to do this for all of our transactions, it would turn out to be quite a large sum," Buch added.
At the Spinneys store in the Mazaya Centre, however, trainee manager Manil Shrestsa said the coins were not used.
"The 5fils and 10fils we don't keep. We used to keep these before but not for a long time. They're not of use so we don't keep them," he said.
A Safestway spokesman said the store gave out 5fils and 10fils coins if they were available in the till, but did not collect them from banks.
Prakash Ramchandani, assistant manager of the Choithram store in Al Garhoud, said many customers did not like to accept 25fils coins in change let alone 5fils and 10fils.
He said the store either gave out 5fils and 10fils to give customers the exact change they were due, or rounded up the change to the nearest 25fils.
The 1fils coins were not used at the company's stores at all, he added.
According to Rashid Al Fandi, executive director for banking operations at the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates, the 1fils, 5 ils and 10fils coins would not be removed from circulation because "they are part of the dirham".
In total, about Dh3 million worth of 10fils coins had been issued, he said, along with Dh1.5 million of 5fils and about Dh27,000 of 1fils coins.
Many of these coins are likely to be out of circulation since customers rarely use them, so in total nearly Dh5 million could be languishing in money boxes or simply lost completely.
Gulf News
