Starting Next Month, It Will Be Harder to Exchange 'New Money'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Starting next month, it will become difficult to exchange still usable currency for new bills at the Bank of Korea without a special reason.

The Bank of Korea announced on the 21st that from the 2nd of next month, it will change the 'currency exchange standards' to, in principle, provide used currency when exchanging currency.

Used currency refers to currency that has circulated in the market, been collected by financial institutions or exchange counters and returned to the Bank of Korea, then undergone currency authentication processes such as counterfeit and alteration detection and cleanliness assessment before being reissued.

Currency that is damaged or contaminated and unsuitable for circulation can be exchanged, and during holidays such as Seollal and Chuseok, newly manufactured currency kept by the Bank of Korea and produced by the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation can also be provided.

However, the provision of new currency is limited within a certain scope to alleviate unnecessary preference for new bills and reduce social costs associated with additional currency production.

The Bank of Korea is changing the currency exchange standards to ease excessive demand concentration on new bills.

Through the new currency exchange standards, the Bank expects to reduce excessive demand for newly manufactured currency, better meet demand by denomination and type, and more faithfully fulfill the original purpose of the currency exchange system, such as the circulation of clean currency.

Additionally, active redistribution of used currency is expected to reduce costs required for currency production and improve the quality of exchange services.

The Bank of Korea explained, "This will prevent the abuse of monopolizing currency exchange counters to acquire newly manufactured currency for specific purposes, minimizing various inconveniences for genuine currency exchange customers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.