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Last year, the Bank of Latvia processed – sorted, packaged, transferred and otherwise inspected – 140.7 million euro banknotes, including 23.3 million banknotes and 33 million euro coins, according to the bank’s press secretary Jānis Silakalns.
Worn or badly damaged money is destroyed – banknotes and coins that have fallen into the water, burned, chemically or otherwise badly damaged.
According to the bank, the carts that carry the coins can be very heavy, up to 700-800 kilograms. Paper money, on the other hand, is lighter – a box of banknotes weighs about 15 kilograms.
It should be noted that the money processing equipment in the Bank of Latvia’s vault in Pārdaugava works at a rate of 30 banknotes per second. At this speed, the banknotes run on a small conveyor where various sensors check them. The machine not only counts the money, but also checks the security features, whether the banknote is genuine and whether it is too worn to put it back into circulation.
New or tested used money from the Bank of Latvia goes to banks, but further – to entrepreneurs and residents. After that, the money from shops and other institutions returns to the banks and from the banks or money processing companies – again to the Bank of Latvia. The banknote returns to the central bank an average of 3.9 times a year.
The number of euro banknotes and coins from central bank vaults circulating through commercial banks is largely determined by the demand for cash by money users. If shopkeepers withdraw more of the amount in the bank account in small denominations (for exchange money) and people withdraw from the ATM in the same way, then there are more small banknotes in circulation, the bank explains.
In 2015, lats banknotes (215 thousand banknotes and two million coins) continued to return in a much smaller flow to the Bank of Latvia, which will be able to change indefinitely after the changeover to the euro.
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