Two sides of a coin

Initially fascinated by the shapes, sizes and designs of New Zealand currency, I took photos of some of them and then kept it away in the dark recesses of my netbook. So I dug it up and posted it with the purpose of educating the fascinated:



Just so you know, the Kiwi bird features in the 1 dollar coin but not in any one of the dollar notes (5,10,20,50,100). The 50 dollar note has the Kokako bird on it.

And here's two sides to the 20 cent coin...



but really the original colour is the latter: nickle-plated. Coins like this are useful on days at the Harbourside Market...if you're a Wellington local, you'll know what I'm talking about!

To tell you the truth, I hardly use these dollars and cents that I have in my wallet. Most of the time I buy stuff using my bank's Visa debit card, which also has this service called EFTPOS that everyone seems to be using over here.

Since I'm talking about money here, I might as well give you a short summary of the banking facilities here. Most of them are Australian owned, including the one I opted for - ASB (short for Auckland Savings Bank). After surveying the many choices (KiwiBank, the National Bank, ANZ, Westpac), I fancied ASB because of its reasonably high interest rate for the Savings account (3.15% per annum) and for the fact that it doesn't have some of the more ridiculous monthly maintenance fees.

Well, that's the story just in case you happen to be stoppin over :)