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In Balikpapan, making transactions with coins can result in a free t-shirt
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A program has been launched by Bank Indonesia in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, to encourage people to use coins in transactions. (Shutterstock/-)
B
ank Indonesia’s representative office in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, has launched a program to encourage residents to make transactions using coins amid concerns about the extremely low number of coins circulating on the market.
The program is called Besimpun Benggol. In the local language, benggol means coin while besimpun means to put everything in good order.
As part of the program, members of the public are invited to make transactions using coins and to take selfies while doing so and to upload the photos to the program’s official Facebook page.
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“So, if you have many coins in your house, take them to shops or retailers, make purchases or change them to banknotes,” the representative office head Suharman Tabrani said on Monday.
He claimed that all posters would get a free t-shirt from Bank Indonesia.
Suharman said people should take the coins to retailers instead of banks because the aim of the program was to increase the number of coins in circulation.
“We disbursed Rp 4 billion [US$295,000] in coins between January and July this year, but only Rp 70 million, or two percent of them, are currently in circulation,” he said.
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The program was launched last month. As of Monday, the Facebook group had 453 Facebook members, 16 of which had already received free t-shirts for uploading pictures of their coin transactions.
Bank Indonesia Balikpapan spokesperson Andi Palupi said the 16 people made coin-based transactions worth a total Rp 4.5 million. (bbs)
