Banks are short of small change, "black market" charges high prices

(Baonghean.vn) -It has become a tradition that every Tet holiday, people need to exchange small bills to go to pagodas and give lucky money. This year, the State Bank has announced that it will stop issuing small bills under 5,000 VND. Therefore, anyone who needs to exchange small bills must go to the "black market" even though they have to pay 10 to 2 or 2.5 (exchange 100,000 VND for 20 to 25 thousand VND) or even 3 to 4 (exchange 100,000 VND for 30 thousand VND) for 500 VND or 200 VND bills with intact serial numbers.

Rich money exchange service

When I went to Vinh market and wanted to exchange money for the New Year's Eve, I went straight to the paper money stalls. They had all denominations under 20,000 VND, which the banks hardly had. I asked Mrs. Tam, a veteran in the paper money business at Vinh market, and said: "The small change for the New Year's Eve that is still in its original series is extremely rare, I have to save it from last year to wait for Tet. Of course, I have to have an acquaintance at the bank, I give them 10 and I only get 15 or 20. Which deposit do you want, 2,000 or 1,000?" When I expressed my desire to exchange 500 VND, Mrs. Tam immediately whispered: "To tell you the truth, no one in the market has this 500 VND, I'm the only one who has saved a few million for the past few months. If you want to exchange it, I'll give you some money for friendship, only 3 (exchanging 100,000 VND costs 30,000 VND)?"

At Con Temple, small change exchange stalls have been set up at the temple entrance, and women are enthusiastically inviting people. The most common are still 2,000 and 1,000 bills displayed in series, each series is 200,000 VND. When asked if they have 500 bills to exchange, the women all said that this denomination has run out. If you want to exchange used money "but still very new", you still have to pay a high rate of 20-25%. With denominations of 1,000 VND or 2,000 VND, you have to pay a fee of 20%. Ms. Lai, a long-time "small change trader", said: "The demand for exchanging small change this year is not as high as last year, but there is a shortage of less than 5 (under 5 thousand), so the lower the value of the money, the higher the profit." She said that last year, on each "first day" she exchanged about ten million VND for all denominations from 10,000 VND or less.

Ms. Lai shows a rare stack of 500 VND bills that she "picked up" last year.

Wanting to exchange small bills for lucky money on the occasion of the New Year, I asked an acquaintance who is an employee of Bao Viet Bank. Ms. Nguyen Thanh Tra said: "This year, the bank is very short of small bills with original serial numbers. Each bank employee of ours only gets 10 20,000 VND bills, regular customers who want to exchange must notify one month in advance." Like Bao Viet Bank, Eximbank is also short of 20,000 VND and 10,000 VND bills, especially small bills under 5,000 VND, there is no new money to exchange for customers who want to go to the temple at the beginning of the year. Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep, an employee of Eximbank, said: "This year, my store has a very high demand for exchanging small bills, most of them are VIP customers of the bank, so when they want to exchange but we don't have any, it is very embarrassing, so we often have to ask the Ha Tinh branch to exchange for them."

The cost of exchanging new money on websites this year has not increased compared to last year. On websites such as 5giay.com, Enbac.com, and quabieusep.vn, customers can exchange as much as they want, including cotton bills worth 10,000 VND, which are no longer in circulation, the fee is still mainly around 10-15%, no different from last year. The smaller the denomination, the higher the fee. For example, a 200 VND bill, exchanged for over 2 million VND, will cost up to 55% of the total amount exchanged, while a 100,000 VND bill will cost only about 4%. The 2 USD bill is sold for about 50,000 VND/bill, with only a few collectible bills priced from 1 million VND to 2 million VND/bill.

At the bank, it is difficult to exchange small bills or you can only exchange very little while on the black market, small denomination bills are still abundant in the pockets of traders, which has made many people angry. Ms. Nguyen Thu Trang in Quang Trung is bargaining for small bills at Mrs. Tam's counter in Vinh market, saying: "The bank said there is no money under 20,000 but the market still has a lot of money, you can exchange as much as you want, do the bank staff sell money outside?"

When interviewing the leader of the State Bank of Vietnam, Nghe An branch, on this issue, it was said: The bank has all kinds of small denomination coins to serve the needs of customers who want to exchange small coins at the end of the year. However, small denomination coins and new coins to serve the spiritual needs of the people are not the responsibility of the bank.

Printing small bills is wasteful.

It is undeniable that using small change to go to pagodas and give lucky money is a long-standing traditional custom of Vietnamese people, however, this custom is being distorted in many forms. Many people go to pagodas at the beginning of the year instead of donating to build and support, theyscatter moneyeverywhere. They stuff money through the cracks at temple gates, temple lakes, Buddha statues' limbs, tree roots... it looks very offensive.

Small change is also used in many ways such as scattering money to ward off bad luck on a wedding day, if two weddings meet, or if the bride's car passes through intersections. Any house with a baby on its first month celebration or taking a child home from the hospital passing through intersections will also scatter stacks of small change. It is impossible to control all the long-standing habits and customs of the people, but printing small change to serve spiritual needs will be an opportunity for a group of private traders to profit from money exchange services during the New Year.

Let's do a calculation, if on the occasion of the New Year, a family changes 200,000 VND into 2,000 VND or 1,000 VND to go to the temple, which costs 40,000 VND, then the whole city of Vinh with more than 300,000 people will spend more than 120,000,000 VND, a huge amount of money. Therefore, the decision of the State Bank not to print small bills during the Lunar New Year of Quy Ty is also supported by many people. According to economic experts, the use of low-value bills under 2,000 VND is currently mainly used for temple visits and is rarely put into circulation or payment.

Article and photos: Thanh Nga