Bucket Technologies Aims to Eliminate the Need to Handle Coins Ever Again

Singapore, Singapore, January 18, 2018 --(PR.com)-- Physical coins contribute to waste everywhere in the world and Singapore is no exception; approximately S$50 million worth of new coins go into circulation every year in Singapore, which means almost S$10 of coins are minted for each person in Singapore each year.

Yet many of us still find ourselves asking: where did all of my coins go? Coins are what we call “idle” currency: they rarely participate in economic markets and contribute little to your actual spending power. If each of the 1.26 million households in Singapore accumulates S$70 of coins each year (which gets saved or stored in a biscuit tin at home), that equates to a whopping $S88M worth of coins going dormant.

For the coins that we do manage to save, we’re still often subject to significant commission fees and time restrictions before they ever reach our bank accounts. For instance, DBS Coin Deposit Machines charge a deposit fee of S$0.012 per piece (12% fee on the total deposit). The Singapore Mint waives the fees for the first 1,000 pieces of coins deposited (after that it’s a 5.35% fee on the rest), but it takes two weeks before the amount is credited to your account. UOB, in addition to charging a commission, limits coin deposit hours from 9:30am to 11:30am on only Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Due to such restrictions, "Singaporeans are finding themselves with large quantities of monetary value they cannot easily handle, spend or save," says Mac Ling, Managing Director, Asia of Bucket Technologies. "The challenge for us is capturing this value and putting the spending power back into Singaporean's hands."

Going Coinless with Bucket
This is where Bucket comes in, to help both buyers and retailers put their coins to use in an easy, hassle-free way. By digitising the value of coin change immediately at the point of sale during retail cash transactions, Bucket’s platform eliminates the need for carrying, collecting, or depositing physical coins, while preserving the value of your change

Let’s say a customer orders a chocolate mocha at Starbucks, which costs her S$4.40. The customer checks out as usual, gives the cashier a S$10 note, and tells the cashier “Please Bucket the change.” She is then handed only the S$5 note and the receipt with a QR code printed at the bottom representing the remaining $0.60. At a convenient time, she can scan the code with her phone which deposits the value of the coins (S$0.60) into her Bucket account. Once her Bucket account reaches S$50, she can choose to have the full S$50 deposited to her bank account or donate all or a portion of it to charity. There is no cost to use Bucket as a consumer or a retailer.

"Think of Bucket as a digital piggy bank. It will digitise all physical coin currency, and dramatically reduce the number of coins lost, discarded, or stored dormant in households,” said Ling. “We thus aim to accelerate Singapore’s transition into a cashless economy, as part of their Smart Nation vision as articulated by Prime Minister Lee at last year’s National Day Rally.”