The Federal Reserve (Fed) will lift the last restriction on distributions of coins Friday.
Since June 15, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted the supply chain and normal circulation patterns for U.S. coin.
As part of that disruption, the Fed adopted a plan to restrict distribution due to the U.S. Mint’s measures put in place to protect its employees.
Those restrictions will be lifted Friday. Financial institutions will be able to place orders for coin from the Fed without limits and should be able to do the same for their customer orders.
However, coin circulation has not fully returned to its normal pre-pandemic patterns.
As long as the same conditions which led to coin circulation challenges in 2020 are still in place, the Fed, U.S. Coin Task Force and the cash supply chain will continue to closely monitor the health of the coin supply chain and stand ready to respond.
The Fed’s coin allocation program began June 15, after coin deposits from depository institutions to the Fed had significant declines. Fed coin orders from depository institutions began to increase as regions reopened, which resulted in the Fed’s coin inventory being reduced to below normal levels.
To ensure a fair and equitable distribution of existing coin inventory to all depository institutions, the Federal Reserve Banks and their coin distribution locations began to allocate available supplies of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters to depository institutions as a temporary measure.
The temporary coin allocation methodology was based on historical order volume by coin denomination and depository institution endpoint and current U.S. Mint production levels. Order limits were unique by coin denomination and are the same across all Federal Reserve coin distribution locations. Limits will be reviewed and potentially revised based on national receipt levels, inventories and Mint production.