Bank Said They Have No Coin. (Due To Covid-19)

Got this message today at work, FYI I don't work for the Fed. This will help explain why people had about their banks not giving out boxes.

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NONCONFIDENTIAL // EXTERNAL

Good afternoon,

As you may be aware, due to the COVID-19 pandemic many banks and retail outlets have been experiencing low inventories of coins in recent weeks caused by the dramatic decrease in coin circulation through the normal supply chain. As of April 2020, the U.S. Treasury estimates that the total value of coin in circulation is $47.8 billion, up from $47.4 billion as of April 2019. While there is adequate coin in the economy, the slowed pace of circulation has meant that sufficient quantities of coin are not readily available where needed. Given the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's role in distributing supplies of cash and coin to Federal Reserve FedCash® Services customers, I wanted to touch base to update you on recent actions by the Federal Reserve to address the issue.

In an announcement made today, the Federal Reserve will be convening a group of industry leaders for a limited-scope, limited duration task force, the. U.S. Coin Task Force, to work together to reduce the consequences and duration of COVID-19 related disruptions to normal coin circulation. This follows the implementation on June 15th of a temporary strategic allocation methodology intended to help resolve the near-term supply issues while ensuring fair and equitable distribution of existing coin inventories.

The coin supply chain includes many participants, from the U.S. Mint who produces new coin, to the Federal Reserve who distributes coin on the U.S. Mint's behalf, to armored carriers, banks, retailers and consumers, all of whom have a role to play in helping to resolve this issue. The task force will begin meeting in early July to develop recommendations for actionable steps our supply chain partners can take to address the issue.

One billion is a number we often take for granted:

One billion seconds is 33 1/3 years.
One billion minutes ago is around the time Jesus Christ was walking the Earth.

Close to 48 billion dollars of coin currently in circulation impacts my thoughts about the concept of our society becoming cashless soon.

That is a big part of it. The average person conducts his business, get change and tosses it into a jar. He may want to dispose of it, but the bank lobbies are closed and you can't send quantities of coin through the pneumatic tubes that most drive throughs use. So they don't have a convenient way to dispose of it. So it just keeps accumulating and not returning to the flow of commerce.



$48 billion is $137 person. It really isn't that much.

Seems about right. I seldom if ever have more than $80 in cash on me.

Since the pandemic, it is basically $0.

I think what's important to this discussion is how much coin anyone has accumulated in the last 6 months.
Because 6 months ago there was no issue.

For me the answer is close to zero. I take my pocket change and get rid of it, except for the very occasional LWC or War Nickel I find. I probably accumulate less than 50 cents/year of U.S. coins.

But that's meaningless... we are talking about the aggregate behavior of an economy with 300 million consumers.

Took my last bag of coins to the bank today. Total dumped since the 1st of the year $3239.57 Coins included the small dollar also. Coins were from a 5 gallon container and leftovers from roll searching over the last 5 years. My teller told me that she was happy to get some coins in and she was also happy that I was done bringing all those bags in. I used some of that change to pick up a couple of 1909 S VDB wheaties.

Kroger just announced they are no longer providing change back but giving you the option to have it loaded on your customer loyalty card to be applied to a future purchase.

Except at the self-checkout lines. Which is the only way I have shopped for the last 10 years.

I think this concept dovetails with the threads on cashless society ... COVID is providing the excuse to do the experiment.
For grocery stores, where repeat customers are the norm rather than the exception, the Kroger system makes perfect sense.

I expect every large chain will follow suit, and never look back.

Seems the news networks have finally caught on. CBS national news also did a piece on the shortage of coin this evening.