Loan Machines Available During Change To Decimals

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31236, 7 December 1966, Page 7

Loan Machines Available During Change To Decimals

Business machines will be provided on loan for most owners while their own are away being converted to operate in dollars and cents under the zoning plan announced by the Decimal Currency Board.

"Loaners” will be available for most cash registers and adding machines, said the chairman (Mr S. L. Moses). “In many cases it will be Impracticable to arrange loan machines to fit into accounting systems.” Arrangements have been made with machine companies to provide about 2000 machines on loan. Some will operate in £.s.d. and others In dollars and cents. “Full information about loan machines will be given to owners by the companies doing the conversion job,” Mr Moses said. Details of loan arrangements and precise timing of conversion will be given nearer the day machines are picked up to be converted. Replacement

A few types of business machines will be replaced—at Government expense—rather than being converted. “This is where conversion costs more than replacement or where there is some other technical reason,” Mr Moses said. Details of replacement arrangements have already been advised to most of the owners concerned. Timing of actual replacement has yet to be decided, but it will probably be arranged in line with the board’s zone programme. The amount of compensation for category B machines —those too old for conversion, but which qualify for a cash payment—will be announced

before D.C. Day (July 10, 1967).

The board is making no special arrangements in this programme for earlier or later conversion of machines, Mr Moses said. “No advancement and no deferment can be considered. It would interfere with the smooth flow needed for the job.” Mr Moses explained that trucks, specially equipped to avoid damage, would be used to transport machines to and from conversion plants. “Getting the conversion job done quickly depends on efficient use of transport,” Mr Moses said. “The trucks cannot be running back and forth on odd jobs.” If a machineowner deliberately missed his turn in the programme, he might have to make special arrangements with his machine company to do the whole job at his own expense after the whole programme was finished.

Where possible, zone boundaries follow natural features or lines of communication, Mr Moses said. “We have tried to keep smaller towns and suburban shopping centres as entities. We would like to see shopping areas move-into the new currency in harmony with the zoning programme,” he said. The board hoped shopkeepers would not rush into the change with new machines and be out of step with the rest of a community. Different Brands

“There could be some difficulty where a businessman has more than one brand of machine from different companies,” Mr Moses said. “The zoning programme is designed

to alleviate this conversion problem as far as possible.” Machine companies actually doing the conversion job would co-operate to try and minimise time lags and difficulties. There will be no machine conversion plants further south than Christchurch, Mr Moses said. “The major companies are establishing plants in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch,” he said. All business machines in the region centred on Dunedin will be taken north for conversion and will be converted simultaneously with machines from northern regions. Not In Plan

Price - computing scales, franking machines, parking meters and taxi meters and other machines are not included in the zoning plan announced. “This zoning plan applies only to the principal business machines—cash registers, adding machines and accounting machines,” Mr Moses said. Separate conversion arrangements are being made for other machines.