Nearly two months after the seamless introduction of the euro, the deutsche mark will no longer be accepted for payments at most stores and banks beginning on Friday.

Although the euro has been Germany's only official currency since Jan. 1, many stores and restaurants said they voluntarily would continue to accept deutsche marks through the end of February.

Few seem worried. "This is practically meaningless," said a spokesman for Rewe, one of Europe's largest supermarket chains. "Virtually no one has paid with marks since mid-January," he said, adding that the company would stop listing prices for its products in both currencies during the coming weeks.

The transition to the new currency has been smooth. More than 75 percent of Europeans had adopted the euro in the second week after its introduction, the EU reported in January. Nevertheless, several recent surveys indicated that half of all Germans would prefer to return to the deutsche mark, which circulated from 1948 until the end of 2001.

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