I refer to Charles Caruana Carabez’s letter regarding small change (March 30) and would like to suggest a solution for Malta; a solution that is in place in some other countries, among them Sweden.
The solution is simple; you just have coins in the denomination of, say, 10 cents and higher. Prices however are as they are now, with prices ending with smaller sums than 10 cents.
When it is time to pay you simply equalise the amount of cents either to 0 cents or 10 cents depending on whether the total final sum amounts to 5 or below (0 cent) or 6 or over (10 cents).
Doing this you do not have to change the price. Prices would probably go up if you just delete the smaller coins.
This system has worked very well in Sweden.