Denver Channel: Banks offering cash for coins

Posted at 9:15 AM, Jul 30, 2020 and last updated 7:32 AM, Aug 03, 2020

Economic experts say the coin shortage is linked to the pandemic.

"There was a decline in supply of coins by the mints and there was an increase in demand for the coins as we all got back to getting the groceries," said Kishore Kulkarni, Ph.D., a professor of economics at MSU Denver.

Kulkarni said countries around the world have suffered from coin shortages before, and while these types of coin buyback programs do help the economy, more transactions in the future will require less exact change.

"We are in a cashless society already, and we will be more so moving forward," Kulkarni said.