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

Although I predominantly use plastic, I normally accumulate enough change (~$10) over a few months to take it to the coin counting machine at my bank. But I haven't used cash since February, and now when I go to the bank I use the drive through, so I have a few dollars in coins sitting around that I accumulated pre-COVID that won't be going anywhere for presumably a long time. As others pointed out, this is likely a common occurrence across the country. I expect that post-COVID (if there is ever such a thing), we'll see a repeat of the Great Coin Dump of 2009, especially if the recession continues.

In the meantime, I saw my first sign about the coin shortage while at a fast food drive through recently, although it simply encouraged customers to pay in exact change or use plastic.

Sounds like you think viruses don't adhere to plastic?

I'm holding out for 10 percent.

That's what disinfectant is for.

The primary reason I'm not using cash during the pandemic is not because I'm concerned about its cleanliness over plastic, but rather it's because my shopping behavior has changed. Whenever and wherever possible, I either shop online or opt for contactless payment. If those options aren't possible, then I use plastic because it's either more convenient or I don't want to go inside a building to pay in cash.

That's also why I don't go dump my change at my bank's coin counter. So the few dollars in coins I have sitting around will likely stay there for the foreseeable future, and with many other people thinking the same way, I can see why there's a coin shortage.

Because the areas where there is a surplus are in peoples change jars, not financial institutions. Yes there are still areas where the banks and businesses have surpluses, but buying them and redistributing would simply mean that those areas will develop shortages sooner, and probably won't really help those areas that already have shortages. The new influx of coin will rapidly go out and disappear into coin jars in that area.

That is not a surplus in the context of the discussion here. That creates a shortage by removing coin from the normal "supply chain."

I was referring to the geographical distribution of shortages. We have evidence of shortages in Wisconsin where a premium can be had for coin, but I am not seeing it here in central Ohio.

The Fed could help this by sending coin to Wisconsin, but as @jbuck points out, that costs eomthing.

When I got to the bank earlier today, the teller asked if I wanted to exchange the coin rolls I brought, for paper or to deposit them.

I asked if I could trade my rolled change for a box of nickels. They said that the bank was low on nickels, but I could still get half a box if I wanted.

I traded in $50 worth of the nickel and dime rolls I brought to help them out a little. Instead of getting the half box of nickels, I ended up getting 2 full boxes of customer rolled cents before the bank shipped them out tomorrow, because they had plenty of those.


A few weeks ago in the next town over, I was at a store talking to one of the workers about the coin shortage. They said that they keep needing to drop change off at the bank because they get so much of it from customers.