Today the federal government will begin the phased elimination of the penny.

As of today the Royal Canadian Mint will no longer distribute pennies to businesses and financial institutions.

The move is predicted to save the federal government $11 million per year in production and distribution costs for the copper-plated coins.

It seems that minting the one-cent coin costs a pretty penny.

But out of a $276.1 billion federal budget for 2012-13 -and predicted $21.1 billion deficit -an $11 million per year savings is penny ante stuff.

While Finance Minister Jim Flaherty would likely argue that a penny saved is a penny earned, hopefully this isn't a case of being penny wise and pound foolish.

However, Canada isn't the first country to eliminate it's small-denomination coins.

Sweden eliminated its one and two re coins - the Swedish equivalent to the penny - in 1972. The country continued to eliminate small-value coins until September, 2010 when the country stopped producing all coins with a value less than one krona - the Swedish equivalent to a dollar.

In Sweden today all cash transactions are rounded to the nearest krona, even when prices are listed in re. Norway followed it's neighbour's example in 2012 and moved to eliminate all coins smaller than the krone - Norway's equivalent of the dollar.

New Zealand minted its last one- and two-cent coins in 1987. The coins stopped being legal tender in 1990.

Australia followed suit in 1991 and eliminated its one- and two-cent coins.

In 2006, New Zealand followed the Swedish example and eliminated its five-cent coins as well and prices are rounded to the nearest 10 cents for cash transactions. In China, coins valued less than 0.10 yaun are rare, so most prices are rounded to the neared tenth of a yaun.

Other countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland and Turkey have reduced production of or eliminated their small denomination coins.

Even the United States has considered - and so far rejected - pinching its pennies.

With such a broad and well-established precedent for eliminating small coinage, perhaps Canada hasn't gone far enough. After all, in for a penny, in for a pound.

Canada could, and likely will, consider eliminating other small-value coins like the nickel, dime and even possibly the quarter eventually. If eliminating just the penny would save $11 million a year, the savings for eliminating all coins smaller than the loonie would certainly not amount to chump change.

When the penny drops we may realize that - like Sweden and Norway -we don't really need those small coins anymore.

The rapid increase in debit card use has substantially reduced the number of cash transactions, not just in Canada, but around the world.

According to the Interac Association, the collaboration of Canadian banks which provide debit card services in the country, debit card transactions have exceeded cash transactions since 2000.

According to Interac, Canadians spent $182.7 billion in over 4.1 billion debit transactions in 2011 -the latest statistics available.

Only Sweden, the United States and the Netherlands had more debit transactions per resident in 2010, according to Interac.

Like every country with more than two pennies to rub together, Canada is moving towards a cashless society.

Let's hope we're ready to make the change.