No hay monedas

Here in downtown BA, change isn´t worth very much because prices are pretty high for small goods. I mean it´s worth a significant amount, but not enough to break anybody, and so a lot of little stores have signs up that say "No hay monedas", which means that they don´t give out change in coins. They do give out change in banknotes, which goes down to 1 peso, and that is about 28 cents in US dollars.

What´s the reasoning? I assume they don´t give out change because they want to save time, or they don´t have the space in the cash register for lots of little coins that they don´t want to count. Or maybe they use this method to rip off rich people. I´m not really sure, but I´ve seen these signs all over the city.

If you go to a bank they´ll give you exact change of course, and other large stores will as well. It´s mostly just the small shops, like convenience stores and small supermarkets.