SPEARFISH, S.D. AP – Since the COVID- 19 pandemic, people continue paying with physical money to avoid hand to hand contact at the register.

In addition many financial institutional lobbies were kept closed as members couldn’t deposit loads of coins.

Prof. Chanho Cho, Assistant Professor of Finance for the School of Business and Natural Science says this is an unexpected consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic as people avoid using laundry and vending machines.

“So coins are just sitting in their pockets or dresser drawers. [In] my case I store coins in my car.” Prof. Cho says.

Prof. Cho assumes this national coin shortage will stay around for a while — but believes the Covid-19 Virus will reinforce people to shift towards a cashless future for app and card-based payment.

According to the United States Federal Reserve website, the COVID-19 pandemic had a major disruption in to the supply chain and paused the circulation of cash and coins.

‘As a first step, a temporary cap was imposed on the ordered depository institutions place for coins with the Federal Reserve to ensure that the current supply is fairly distributed. In addition, a U.S. Coin Task Force was formed to identify, implement, and promote actions to address distributions to coin circulation.’

The Federal Reserve projects as the economy recovers and businesses reopen, the coin flow will recover to normal circulation allowing the rebuilding of coin inventories.