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.
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.
Su said not even merchants at the markets would take the smallest 10 or 20 cent coins, so she had to spend them at supermarkets. Markets would give her a discount to avoid accepting small coins, she said. If the bill was HK$4.60, they'd settle for HK$4.50.
The trucks will be at Ngau Tau Kok for the rest of this week before going to Yuen Long and Tuen Mun next week and Fanling and Tai Po the following week.
The Monetary Authority, which is running the programme, said getting back unused coins would reduce the need to mint new ones.
The problem goes beyond shoppers to businesses, because they deal with a lot more change.
Banks charge a fee for handling large amounts of coins.
For example, HSBC charges HK$2 to change a bag of coins into banknotes and for more than 500 coins the charge is 2 per cent of the whole amount.
The sheer bulk of coins has surprised contractor G45, operator of the trucks for the monetary authority.
Manager Rocky Wong Ngai-ki said that during a pilot scheme at schools, a student whose parents ran a newsstand brought in HK$12,000, all in $5 coins.
Yesterday, a minibus driver wheeled in two carts of coins. But the authority had capped each transaction at 10kg so the driver had to get in and out of line several times.
"We thought each person might have a biscuit tin's worth of coins, but it turns out people have collected quite a lot of them," Wong said.
He said staff had also helped people sieve out random objects mixed with the coins - including rings, earrings, buttons and even a human tooth.
"A kid who had a tooth removed just put it in a pile of coins and forgot about it," Wong said.
