Why stores never have enough change to give customers

How many times have you left the cash register with a boiled sweet in place of the small change you were owed for your shopping?

Shop assistants often lack enough “change” in cash registers to pay change on small-value purchases, despite the fact that official data provide for two-digit annual rises in the number of coins in circulation.

Coins reported by the NBR (National Bank of Romania) as being in circulation are, however, often blocked by consumers themselves, either because they do not feel like carrying them around, or in order to avoid a negative reaction from merchants when paying with coins.

“I think I’ve got at least half a kilo of coins at home, sometimes I carry some around to buy a bus ticket or a coffee at the metro, but most of the times I have a maximum of ten coins on me because I cannot carry around “kilos” of coins. In addition, if you pay the cashier at the metro counter with 10-ban coins (1 RON equals 100 bani), they may not give you a very friendly look,” says Dana C. On the other hand, companies do not ask banks for small-denomination coins, either, although the NBR last year released 320 million coins at the request of credit institutions.