Again: coin swap Netherlands-Finland

[HBoZ]

Coin swap with Finland
News
News details Date 2 March 2010

In 2010, the Netherlands and Finland will again be exchanging euro coins. The 2009 swap, in which Finnish 5 eurocent coins were exchanged for Dutch two euro coins, was a European first. It saved both costs and benefited the environment.

Swap action

In the Netherlands there is always a lively demand for five eurocent coins. Ordinarily, extra coins are minted to prevent shortages. But swapping is a better option – and Finland is an excellent swapping partner, because it has a large surplus of five €-cents. At the same time, that country is screaming for two-euro coins, which the Netherlands is brimming with.

In the summer of 2009, five lorries left for Finland to deliver 30 million five-cent coins, to return with the 2 euro pieces. Had the exchange not been made, both countries would have to mint more coins. The exchange saved not only 120 tonnes of metal, but productions costs as well.

2010

This first swap with the Finns being such a success, a sequel naturally suggested itself. So plans were made to perform another swap this year. DNB is to transfer three million € 2 coins to Finland, while the Finnish central bank will send 30 million 5 €-cent coins to the Netherlands. The delivery method will be different, though. Last year, the Bank of Finland shipped the coins in shrink-wrapped packages on small pallets. This proved far from ideal for DNB: unpacking the coins meant a great deal of work. Plans this year are to second DNB employees temporarily to the Bank of Finland, where they will package the coins in the accustomed Dutch way, to save time back home.

Coins

The production of euro banknotes is arranged at the European level. Production quota are allotted to countries within the Eurosystem that are expected to each provide a certain number of banknotes of a certain denomination. The production of euro coins, by contrast, is still a national affair.
In the Netherlands, the coin circulation is the joint responsibility of DNB, the Royal Dutch Mint, the Ministry of Finance and the EU Economic and Financial Committee (sub-committee on euro coins). DNB sees that enough coins are kept in stock and determines the number of new coins needed each year. The new coins are minted by the Royal Dutch Mint.

http://www.dnb.nl" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Dakkus]

Reading this article again made me wonder /why/ Finland needs so many 2€ coins. I think I also may have an answer to the question:
Because the only notes you can get from an ATM are 20€ and 50€. That causes especially the smaller shops to regularly run out of 5€ notes, which means the shop will pay back with 4x2€ if they must pay you 8€.

How much cheaper would it to make the banks put at least 10€ notes in the ATMs than to exchange coins with Netherlands?