Consumers are more likely to use cash for small transactions if the purchase results in a small amount of change, a working paper published by the Bank of Canada says.

In Cash Versus Card, researchers examine consumer behaviour when making low-value transactions using data from a 2013 survey.

In their model, the authors – Heng Chen, Kim Huynh and Oz Shy – assume consumers receive change in the most “efficient manner”, therefore minimising the number of coins received when making low-value