FedCash® Services Notice on Coin Order Allocation

Posted by Ben Shuey on June 16, 2020

Recently credit unions and banks have received notices from FedCash® Services indicating that the Federal Reserve Banks are allocating orders of coin to ensure fair distribution.

While the Federal Reserve Banks have ample supplies of currency, they are currently experiencing lower-than-normal coin inventories. There are several factors that are contributing to this situation:

• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mint operations are enforcing social distancing, which means the supply of new coins has been reduced; and
• With many financial institution branches operating with closed lobbies, the return and deposit of coins into members account has been limited. That means fewer financial institutions are returning coins to the Federal Reserve Banks.

Per the notice from FedCash® Services to credit unions and banks, the Federal Reserve Banks used the financial institutions’ 2019 average coin ordering volumes to categorize the organizations into small, medium, large, and extra-large groups. Based on the groupings, the FRB has established temporary weekly order limits for each depository institution based on their historical coin orders.

Conversations with the San Francisco FRB office indicate that they expect this to only be a temporary measure.

Posted in Advocacy on the Move.