The United States has minted the last batch of one-cent coins after 232 years of existence. According to the manager of the National Bank of Panama, Javier Carrizo Esquivel, this measure, adopted in Philadelphia, is due to both economic and operational reasons related to cash handling. He added that it is estimated that there are about 250 billion cents in circulation in the United States, so their disappearance will not be immediate, but they will no longer be minted. Carrizo also pointed out that the National Bank and the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Panama are analyzing a bill to facilitate the use of cash in case of a possible future shortage of low-denomination coins. The proposal consists of allowing rounding in stores: when the fraction ends in one or two, it would be rounded down; in three and four to five; in six and seven to five; and in eight and nine up to the next whole number. The decision was made because producing the 'penny' had become more costly than its own value, reaching a manufacturing cost of 3.7 cents per unit, which made its continuation financially nonsensical.
