I'm assuming from seeing 2 tellers on any given Saturday that bank traffic & demand for cash is at an all time low (thus the BoC doesn't need to release new notes). At least that's been my experience out in the burbs of GTA (Ontario).
Makes sense, especially since it seems like Scotiabank is closing down branches every year for some years now. Foot traffic is quite low these days (I haven't done any in-person banking on a regular basis since July 2012), and the panhandlers loitering outside the branches doesn't help much. Plus, I did learn on an article that Scotiabank is phasing out physical banking in favor of digital branches - implying that Scotiabank branches may likely be clearing out whatever cash exists in their vaults. Once a denomination is depleted, they're likely to discontinue ordering that denomination - realizing the bank branch's future. I expect that if Scotiabank is phasing out physical branches in favor of digital branches, other bank corporations will likely follow suit. I did learn that Loblaws and Walmart already have a significant number of self-serve checkouts, and now Dollarama and Sobeys is now starting to phase them in.
By the end of this year, eight branches in rural Newfoundland will be gone. I expect there will be more branches in Newfoundland closed in 2025 (though maybe fewer than eight).
I think it's today's grandparents and great-grandparents that are the reason why cash still exists. I still use cash despite being younger, but only because it's much cheaper to withdraw so much cash in one transaction as opposed to multiple debit and electronic payments.
On the upside, we have seen a big increase in new prefixes this year as opposed to last year; but sadly, this year the only new prefix I saw in my region (that was new to the region, to be exact) was $100 GKF in early August - and that prefix was circulating in Canada for at least two or three years by that point. By the time the HJ* series started to appear in Canada, GKD was likely the latest prefix issued to banks in my province at the time. There still have been no new $5 prefixes (not even the Lane-Macklem signature combo) in my region to date. But regarding the big increase in new prefixes in Canada, there have been at least one new prefix reported to the SNDB every month so far this year. By last Christmas, only one new prefix was listed in the "recent prefixes" section, but then as 2023 was drawing to a close $5 INT did get reported to the database.
It will be very interesting to see what $5 prefixes I see in my change in the coming months. If I see more $5s with Wilkins-Macklem signatures than Wilkins-Poloz signatures in my change, then chances are the majority of the Wilkins-Poloz signature $5s were likely replaced with $10 Rogers-Macklem notes due to inflation and will be pretty clear by that point that the $10 bill's dark period - which lasted about three decades - is finally over. For what it's worth, on several occasions last year or earlier this year, a Dollarama outlet did appear to have plenty of $10 notes in one cashier's till, and didn't seem to have as many $5 notes.
