I think they still have the mentality here that if the bills are too large in nominal terms, then it’s bad for the economy or inflation. Of course that’s false logic, but some places think like this. In Korea for example, the 10,000 won bill was the largest bill for a while, which is at most like $10 USD, and for a time it was less than $7 USD just based on the exchange rate. Now they have a 50,000 note but they skipped the 20,000, go figure.
It’s especially odd considering that the smallest is 100. 100 to 1000 is a narrow range! I can’t think of any other country that only has three denominations of bills in heavy circulation.
I don’t think it’s too different in the UK (or at least parts of it) – £5, £10, and £20, with cards/mobile payments being standard for larger stuff and £50 notes being relatively rare.
I haven’t been to the UK for years, but using £50 notes was inconvenient when I lived there and it still seems to be the case. My dad also mentioned that they were difficult to get hold of before meeting me in Thailand last year, and he needed to go to a bank specifically to get them.
I found the large euro notes a bit weird when I lived in Germany. I used to pay mostly in cash and withdraw €200 or €300 from an ATM each time I needed money so I didn’t have to go to the bank so often. It always seemed slightly odd to key in €200 and have the machine dispense a single €200 banknote or two €100 banknotes. I kind of felt like I should be getting a bigger handful of bills for that amount of money.
Here I normally withdraw NT$11–12k at a time (because that’s the card limit on my main UK card). I wouldn’t mind if NT$2k notes were more common though, especially since I recently switched to a slightly smaller wallet – carrying 10–15 NT$1k notes plus some smaller notes around does feel a bit too bulky.
I haven’t been to the UK, but when I’m in the Euro zone I’ve found 50s and 100s to be as common as they are in the US. There’s nothing similar to that in Taiwan (except the 2000s that no one uses).
So went to the bank to get a few, they have small paper form . The NT$20 comes in a bundle of $1,000 so got a lot (more than I wanted). Used a few, gave one to street vendor from Europe (Turkie) and he thought is was NT$50 haha.
I wonder if this is why they’re rare? Because maybe some unscrupulous guy would try to screw others over by handing over 20nt coins pass off as 50nt coins. This could be why the 2 tone 50nt coin got demonitized.
Speaking of similar looking currency, I remember the older 500nt bill looking very similar to 100nt notes, and it was very easy to confuse the two.
Hilarious interaction in the first 7-11 I rarely go to.
The 20ish clerk made a face like I would have handed her some fake currency. I even showed her the roll from Taiwan Bank. She said those are not accepted and called her manager, but they were busy in the back. Another customer behind me said they wanted the coins and exchanged them with the clerk for 10 dollar coins.
The guy was then closely examining his new treasure.
Seems very unknown down south. Next clerk returned the coins and said it’s not Taiwanese money.
After asking another coworker she took it and apologized. But she didn’t put it inside the cash register. Probably is going to ask their supervisor later.