New ECBI euroFloat program to help retailers estimate their euro cash requirements for January 2002.  The minister for Finance, Mr. Charlie McCreevy, TD today launched euroFloat, an easy-to-use computer software program developed by the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland. euroFloat  helps retailers to estimate the number and denominations of euro notes and coins they will require to enable them to give change in euro when the new notes and coins come into circulation on 1 January 2002.  The Minister commended the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland for their innovation and foresight in developing this program and said that the euroFloat programme was timely and should be of practical help to retailers. Mr Philip Hamell, Chairperson of the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland, said that retailers currently get their stocks of notes and coins for their floats from a variety of sources, including the change they get from customers. "When the euro notes and coins come in to circulation on 1st January 2002,  retailers will not be able to look to their customers or local arrangements for the euro notes and coins need to give euro change. They will have to get a larger stock of cash than usual, from their banks, because for the first few days at least, customers will not be tendering euro notes and coins. To help them with this task, we worked with a software company to develop a program that will help assess their euro cash needs," Philip said. The software operates on the basis of the retailers entering from their current till rolls, the transaction amount and the amount tendered as payment. Ideally, the exercise should be carried out during a representative sample period of trading similar to the first week in January. euroFloat then converts the change given in these transactions to euro, and calculates the numbers and denomination of euro notes and coins required to give that amount in change. This data is then "grossed up" to the full value of transactions for a week's trading to estimate their overall euro cash requirements for the first week of January 2002. The retailer can use the results generated by euroFloat to organise with their financial institution the actual amount of euro cash they will require for the early days of January 2002.. Euro notes and coins will be introduced on 1st January 2002. From that date, retail outlets will charge customers in euro and will give change  in euro only, even when Irish cash is tendered as payment. as a result, retailers' float requirements will, at least for the first few days of the cash changeover, be larger than usual.  euroFloat was commissioned by the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland and developed by Clear System Solutions Ltd. in Microsoft Access. It can be used on Windows 95/98/NT/2000. euroFloat is available in CD-Rom and floppy disk formats from the ECBI and Forfás; and it will also be distributed through retail organisations. It can also be downloaded from the ECBI's website (www.euro.ie) and from the Forfás website (www.emuaware.forfas.ie).