The City of Burnaby is looking to stop people from using U.S. currency to may payments for city bills.
The City of Burnaby currently accepts payment for various receivables or one-time transactions in U.S. currency, but the finance department has asked for permission to discontinue this.
For several decades, the City of Burnaby has accepted US cash and cheques as payment tenders at all city locations. Most of the cash volume is at city recreation centres while most volume for cheques is now received through the core cashier at City Hall, mainly for property taxes.
But that costs staff time and the city money due to the extra steps.
“By accepting USD, several foreign exchange procedural steps must be followed which in turn requires manual processing, clearing, and increased costs,” reads a city staff report. “While the volume of USD in previous years was significant to warrant acceptance, this has changed over the last decade.
The volume of U.S. cash for payments, however, has “dropped significantly over time,” says the report. In reviewing data from 2014, there was a total of 281 recorded U.S. denominated transactions. There has been steady drop in volume over the next five years.
“While the year 2020 is not a normal indication of annual volumes, due to canceled events and closed facilities during the pandemic, data continues to demonstrate that the volume and dollar value of USD payments across the City is very low,” says the report. “Payment volumes have shifted over time in favour of credit and debit card payments. In addition, the City has opened more lines of business to allow acceptance of credit card payments, thus reducing reliance on USD cash and cheques. Volumes of USD received at the City has decreased to minimal levels over the past seven years … The volume of the transactions are not commensurate with the resources and costs associated with additional protocols to manage these infrequent transactions out of over 200,000 in-person payment transactions per annum.”
