Transition Is More Than Small Change

It’s such a simple thing: You shove a coin through the slot, you get your Coke. Or your coffee. Or your candy bar.

Europeans perform this uncomplicated act millions of times a day. In airports, offices, railway stations, hallways, arcades.

Then along comes the 15-nation European Union with plans to change the money, a new single European currency to be called the euro.

The euro, which probably will be worth slightly more than a U.S. dollar, will be subdivided into coins valued at 1 cent, 2 cents, 5 cents, 10 cents, 20 cents and 50 cents as well as 1 euro and 2 euro coins.

None of these coins, however, will work in Europe’s 3.2 million vending machines. Or in coin-operated laundries. Or parking meters. Or slot machines.

For vending machine operators, usually small businesses with a few employees, dealing with the new coins just three years from now will be a nightmare.

“We are trying to convince operators that this is not a catastrophe,” said Catherine Piana, secretary-general of the European Vending Assn. “We don’t want to depress them.”

Depressed may be putting it mildly. In simple terms, operators will have to invest enormous amounts of money, time and energy in altering or replacing their machines.

They are not alone, of course.

Eurocommerce, a Brussels-based retailers association, has estimated the retailing industry as a whole will have to fork out the equivalent of $29 billion, or 2% of total annual turnover, to adapt cash registers, price displays, train employees and inform the public about the euro.

The machine vendor, however, is in a tougher bind. If his equipment isn’t ready the day the coins hit the streets in 2002, his income will drop faster than a five-franc slug in a hot soup machine. During the transition period some people will have euros, others will have national coins. Some vending machines will accept euros. Others won’t. There will be confusion and curses. More than a few frustrated kicks in metal shins. And a loss of business.

The vending industry calculates operators will have to spend an average of one hour per machine adapting or replacing the coin mechanism.

“We have to convince members that the euro is coming, that they have to prepare themselves and that they have to start now,” Piana said.

Manufacturers are in a better position. For them, it’s a golden marketing opportunity, having to tool all those new machines. But they have problems too.

Take National Rejectors Inc., the worldwide coin mechanism maker doing business in 80 countries.

“On one hand, the euro is just another coin for us,” world sales manager Rainer Puchalski said in a telephone interview from his office near Hamburg, Germany. “Almost every day there is a new coin somewhere in the world.”

Never before, however, has the entire currency in 11 nations changed at the same time. And the EU still has not settled on final specifications, meaning only limited preparatory work can be done now.

Still, some cities are trying to beat the EU to the punch.

In Bordeaux, France, officials are adopting a new system replacing parking meters and ticket machines with new ones that accept a multiuse card.

“We are going to have a city card that you can use to go to the swimming pool, the theater, pay for parking,” said spokesman Philippe Joyeux. “But we are waiting for the euro before making a final decision.”