In Other News…

• Japan will begin issuing newly redesigned ¥500 coins from around November, the Finance Ministry has said, after their initial release in the first half of the fiscal year from April was postponed due to the pandemic, and in particular delays to updates to ticket and automated teller machines.

The Ministry plans to issue around 200 million of the new coins in fiscal 2021, although the approximately 5 billion coins currently in circulation will still be usable.

The new coins do not differ substantially from the current design, which was introduced in 2002. But they are bimetallic, with different sized grooves on the rim and dated with the Reiwa era (that of the current Emperor Naruhito, as opposed to the Heisei era of his father, Emperor Akihito, who abdicated in 2019).