By Andy Young
Despite having 12 months to prepare for the introduction of the new $5 note many venues are now missing out on income as their cash accepting machines have not been upgraded to take the new note.
The front of the new $5 note
The new note includes security features to help prevent counterfeiting, and while the size and colour remain the same all cash handling products do need to be upgraded.
Banktech’s Head of Marketing, Roxanne Costello, told TheShout: “Venues should contact the manufacturers and they will organise the upgrade to the bill acceptors for the new $5 note. As far as ATMs go, they don’t take $5 notes, so that’s not a problem and as far as our cash redemption terminals and other machines they have all been upgraded to accept the new note.”
The upgrades need to happen on any self-service equipment such as cash redemption terminals and note acceptors that take cash and tickets into gaming machines. Some cashier-assisted products may also require upgrades.
The Group General Manager of ecash, Richard Soussa told TheShout that his company is ready and available to speak to any venue owners or managers about helping to upgrade their machines.
“A number of people are calling us up for some advice and then some of them are following up with the firm-ware and even hardware that they need,” Soussa said. “We are happy to offer them that advice obligation free of course, we have got everything we need to update venues.
“We are finding our service team is getting busier and busier in terms of callouts for upgrades, it’s still not too late to do this. We have a program where venues can pre-pay and cover all the new note denominations that will be coming, or they can just pay for the specific note that has been released.”
The new notes came into circulation from 1 September and the previous $5 notes can continue to be used. The RBA has also said it expects to introduce new $10 in 2016/17, but no dates have yet been announced for other note dominations.