The rate at which the former national currencies in the euro zone are being returned is slower than expected, the European Central Bank said today.
"The introduction of the euro banknotes and coins is progressing well," the ECB said in its daily update on the changeover process.
However, "the total value of national banknotes in circulation declined by just €9.9 billion or 4.7 per cent to €200.25 billion yesterday, which was slightly less than expected," the ECB said.
The bank attributed the development to the time needed for the return of the national banknotes by users via credit institutions to their respective national central banks.
"Around eight billion euro banknotes are already in circulation," the ECB estimated. The ECB has begun to calculate its own "euro progress ratio or EPR" to monitor the progress of the cash changeover.
On January 1st, the EPR stood at 33 per cent, which meant that 33 per cent of the banknotes in circulation in terms of value were euro banknotes. This reached 47.6 per cent on January 9th.
Yesterday the ECB forecast that by the end of this week, almost all cash transactions will be processed in euro.
AFP