SINGAPORE — About 60 million Third Series coins have been issued since June this year, representing about 15 per cent of the total number of coins issued annually.

The new coins are issued on demand from the banks.

However, there are still some vending machines that cannot accept them.

Drinks manufacturer YEO’s says it has spent nearly S$1 million to modify its vending machines to accept the new coins. 70 per cent of its machines can now accept both new and old coins.

However, there are some firms that won’t need to modify their machines because of a new trend in cashless vending machines.

Food catering company JR Group Holdings says it started investing in such machines due to feedback from its customers.

JR Group Holdings CEO Jocelyn Chng said: “Sometimes they (customers) don’t bring so much cash, especially in terms of coins. So we decided to look at the various payment modes.

“For instance, we look at credit card; we look at NETS payment; we look at EZ-Link. And through our internal research, we realised that the majority of Singaporeans will have an EZ-Link card with them, so we decided to go into the EZ-Link payment (for our vending machines).” CHANNEL NEWSASIA