German Cash Forum Supports Cash Rounding

Germany’s National Cash Forum is now advocating rounding to the nearest five euro cents for cash payments, asking the Federal Ministry of Finance to follow suit and ‘advocate for, and press ahead with, a binding statutory rounding rule in Germany’. As part of the Forum’s announcement, it wrote that the rounding rule should be applied across Europe as uniformly as possible. 

The National Cash Forum was established in February 2024 on the initiative of the Bundesbank with the objective of securing cash as a widely used means of payment and maintaining its availability. The Forum is made up of representatives from the associations of the banking industry, retail trade, consumer protection, the CIT industry, and vending machine operators. 

The lack of popularity of low value coins was cited in favour of the introduction of cash rounding, with the Forum remarking on results from the latest Eurobarometer, which found that the majority of respondents were in favour of abolishing one and two cent coins.