The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) is ad­vis­ing that its mem­ber busi­ness­es will con­tin­ue ac­cept­ing the cot­ton based $100 notes, un­til the dead­line date of Tues­day 31 De­cem­ber 2019.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment is­sued to­day, DO­MA ex­pressed con­cerned that some busi­ness­es are re­fus­ing to ac­cept old $100 cur­ren­cy notes be­yond De­cem­ber 15th 2019.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion says such a move will on­ly make the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od even more con­fus­ing and stress­ful for every­one con­cerned, and is ad­vis­ing busi­ness­es to do their part to make the process as smooth as pos­si­ble.

The full text of DO­MA’s state­ment, fol­lows…

“We have ob­served with con­cern that some busi­ness­es, ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, are re­fus­ing to ac­cept old $100 cur­ren­cy notes be­yond De­cem­ber 15th 2019.

Such re­fusal, if adopt­ed, will on­ly add to the very con­fu­sion about which some are al­ready com­plain­ing and is counter-pro­duc­tive to the part that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty must play in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the func­tion of the Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Whether or not we agree with the tim­ing of the changeover to the new poly­mer note it makes no sense, in our view, to com­plain about the po­ten­tial for chaos by adding to that very pos­si­bil­i­ty.

The busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty al­ready knows that the com­mer­cial banks strug­gle to main­tain ser­vice ca­pac­i­ty at this time of year and will on­ly add to the bur­den that the banks were fac­ing by forc­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to use the banks to ex­change their mon­ey. Busi­ness op­er­a­tors can de­posit old notes dur­ing nor­mal hours or via night de­posit at all com­mer­cial banks up to the end of busi­ness on Tues­day De­cem­ber 31st, 2019. This as­sur­ance has al­ready been giv­en by the Bankers As­so­ci­a­tion and in­di­vid­ual busi­ness­es can con­sult with their par­tic­u­lar banks for more in­for­ma­tion on this. .

Busi­ness­es in Down­town Port-of-Spain are ac­cept­ing the old $100 note be­cause it is le­gal ten­der un­til De­cem­ber 31st 2019 and we urge all oth­er busi­ness own­ers to do the same.”