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BMV Asking Customers Not To Pay In Cash During Coin Shortage

The BMV is asking customers not to pay in cash during a nationwide coin shortage.
Lauren Chapman/IPB News
The BMV is asking customers not to pay in cash during a nationwide coin shortage.

Don’t plan to use cash to pay when you go to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles any time soon.

That’s what the BMV is asking Hoosiers amid a nationwide coin shortage.

The U.S. Federal Reserve is experiencing the coin shortage because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses where coins typically enter the system – retail shops, bank lobbies, transit authorities and laundromats – were temporarily closed. And coins that normally would have been received as change were not circulated back.

READ MORE: The Latest Pandemic Shortage: Coins Are The New Toilet Paper

As a result, the BMV has been unable to access additional coin inventory, leaving it unable to provide people with correct change when they pay in cash. The agency is asking customers to only use cash when they can provide exact change.

There’s no timetable from the Federal Reserve when the coin shortage will be over.

Contact reporter Brandon at  bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.

Brandon Smith has covered the Statehouse for Indiana Public Broadcasting for more than a decade, spanning three governors and a dozen legislative sessions. He's also the host of Indiana Week in Review, a weekly political and policy discussion program seen and heard across the state.
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