TD ATM replaced $10 bills with $100 bills

News: Welcome to the Canadian Paper Money Forum.

AJG: we've all stated (or took the position) that the $10 denomination isn't going anywhere (it won't be phased out) for the past year.  In Ontario, we see them all the time. Sure, they're not used like the other denominations but they're still being used.  Polymer has extended their use so the 2018 new prefixes have just trickled out. You will still see some (usually) in a retailer's till but a lot of old 2013 continue to be re-circulated.  I think the bottom line is that all cash use has dropped (& seems to continue to drop) as more & more of the population converts to online & cashless purchases.

When you talk "inflation," the pressure is more on the use of higher denominations like the $50 & $100. The $50's been in high demand since early 2020 (& the beginning of the pandemic/run on stores, etc) b/c Canadians want to store some cash.  That's why we saw the unexpected "Lane" signature appear after Wilkins left. I expect we'll see more of the $50, $100 with the Lane signature & a change to "Rogers" either towards the end of this year or early 2023.  It's much harder to predict what we'll see with the lower denominations as they've all been released in a much slower time frame than what we've seen in the past.

Well, now that i think about it, I realize that the BoC wants to keep the $10 bill in circulation.  There would be financial disadvantages if the BoC retired the $10 bill - there would be no immediate impact, but there would be an impact when prices go up and the cost of, say, a single serving soft drink, candy bar, or bag of chips costs greater than $5 including taxes.  The demise of the $10 bill would eventually lead to the number of $5 bills in circulation more than tripling, which means a lot more money would be spent on printing millions and millions of additional $5 bills, which in turn could be a major financial impact for the Bank of Canada.

I did learn from a retired RBC employee many years ago that $10 bills are not ordered by many banks because most customers do not want them.  If it were their choice, they would rather $5s and not $10s.  I don't know if the mass refusal of $10 bills by customers is linked to Sir John A. MacDonald's likeness, and that Prime Minister did a lot of things that were deemed controversial.  Whatever denomination of new banknote has MacDonald's likeness on it, if the number of bills of that denomination goes down sharply, the reason will be pretty clear..

Newfoundland and Labrador, where I live, has not seen very many of the Desmond $10s to date (most of the circulating $10s in my province are of the 2013 and some of the 2017 commemorative series - but the Desmond $10s are so rare at this point.  I do know there was a large number of 2013 $10s with prefix FTV in spring last year, and last fall there were some FTTs.  This implies the banks that have $10s likely have stockpiles of $10s that they had a hard time going through (I have yet to see any new $10s with the Macklem/Poloz signatures) and the way things are going, the inventories of $10s may not be depleted until much later this decade.

Another thing I'd like to bring up: with massive inflation in recent weeks due primarily to COVID-19 transitioning to endemic, and the world's economy reopening simultaneously, along with the war in Ukraine, could we possibly see a surge of $10 bills in the coming weeks or months?

When I use cash, I always try to take $10 notes and I use them whenever I can.

After discovering that select cash ATMs at Scotiabank replaced $5 bills with $10 bills pretty recently, I wonder if the select cash ATMs at TD Bank will follow suit someday?  I mean, it's possible that demand for $10 bills may have seen a sufficient rebound due to massive inflation, or it's possible that $5 bills still wear out easily (even with Polymer $5s) and can jam the machines and cash dispensers, or a combination of both factors.