https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/19/more-than-75-percent-of-us-o...
See here for more info: https://www.mybanktracker.com/news/coin-counting-machines-ba...
But yes, the lawsuits raised the risk profile of in-branch machines so away they went in most cases. And so did dealing with massive, heavy bags of coins, which are much harder to move than they appear from bank heist movies.
TD Bank was esp. loved by kids... but also lawyers, as it was a great story to tell: kids losing their hard won pennies through a miscounting machines, and since the machines only undercounted, "gasp, must be malicious evil banks again after our money". After multiple suits, bye bye to the machines, and bye bye to yet another way to teach folks that saving can be fun, even if it's less fun than spending.
Another major problem was people taking shavings from the edge of coins and trying to pass them off as unaltered; it's the reason many coins have some kind of pattern imprinted around the edge.
Now when I'm dealing with a lot of cash transactions & the coins are piling up, I just keep them with me, and make sure to spend them when I can. Or I donate them to a charity box.
It seems way less common in CA, at least according to my experience.
Insanely boring activity.
That’s not true. Here’s the truth: https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed.htm
The Congress has directed the Fed to conduct the nation's monetary policy to support three specific goals:
* maximum sustainable employment,
* stable prices, and
* moderate long-term interest rates.
These goals are sometimes referred to as the Fed's "mandate." [hn formatting added]> conducts the nation’s monetary policy to promote maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates in the U.S. economy;
(Emphasis mine)
Every single bullet that follows either restates the first bullet or is tertiary.
Who uses cash? The unbanked and underbanked, about 55 million adults in the USA, approximately 22% of the US households, according to the US Federal Reserve. In the USA that often includes folks like the homeless, or people from drastically lower socioeconomic classes, as well as undocumented workers, those who don't trust the banking system, and those without government IDs. [1]
This also includes anyone with strong needs for transactional anonymity, such as the Hong Kong protesters who bought transit tickets with cash so the police wouldn't be able to trace their ticket purchases/rides and arrest them based on their having gone to the protest location. [2]
Then there are other countries, such as Germany and India, where the majority of transactions are cash---though the past few years it would seem governments are increasingly trying to eliminate cash or cast suspicion on those who prefer Cash's anonymity. [3]
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unbanked
[2] https://qz.com/1642441/extradition-law-why-hong-kong-protest...
[3] https://www.corbettreport.com/the-war-on-cash-a-country-by-c...
It would have to be cheaper on an ongoing basis than constantly minting coins.
Wrapping coins and exchanging them at a bank is just too tedious and time consuming.