Two-year programme launched to collect unwanted small change

The Monetary Authority has launched a programme to take cash out of Hongkongers' pockets, as well as jars, dishes and money boxes around their homes.

In a two-year programme that began yesterday, two collection trucks will be stationed at various points around the city collecting unwanted coins that market merchants won't accept and even banks charge a fee to take.

People lined up in front of two trucks on the Upper Ngau Tau Kok Estate to hand over sometimes large and heavy bags of money for which they received banknotes or Octopus card credit after the coins were counted by machines.

Kowloon Bay retiree Kitty Lo Bing-kit had HK$800 in coins and said she still had HK$500 to HK$600 stashed at home. "The kids in our family put them in a box and never take them out again. We've had these in the house for years," she said. "Now I use my Octopus card so I rarely need coins."

Su Sze-min, 37, who lives nearby, brought in coins worth about HK$400 which she and her husband had been saving for about six years. "Whenever he comes back, he'll have some spare coins in his pockets so I just fish them out. I don't collect them on purpose," she said.