The days of visiting Bali and feeling like a rupiah billionaire on the Kuta Strip may be coming to an end.
Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance says it is planning a new bill to redenominate the rupiah, which would remove three zeroes from the currency.
In other words, instead of paying for your Bintangs with a 100,000 rupiah note, you will be producing a 100 rupiah note, which will have the same purchasing power.
Similarly, the 1,000-rupiah note, the smallest in circulation, would be replaced by a new one rupiah note. The same would apply to the 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, and 100,000-rupiah notes.
The move is only at the discussion stage and even if introduced in the next couple of years, the ministry believes it would take almost seven years to fully implement the move, during which time the public would be permitted to use both sets of banknotes.