Where did Pakistan’s missing coins go?

By Muhammad Aslam

ISLAMABAD, Aug 23 (APP)::Every day, millions of Pakistanis buy petrol, groceries, medicines or other everyday necessities and leave their loose change behind. A few rupees may be left on a shop counter, at a petrol station or replaced with a piece of candy, or simply waved away with a casual “it’s okay.”

     Individually, the amount is almost too small to notice. Collectively, it tells a much larger story about how the value of money has changed. Where do our coins actually go? And when did we stop caring enough to ask for them back?

     “There was a time when even a few coins had a purpose. We kept them carefully because they could be needed for something at home, and if someone came to the door asking for help, we could give what we had,” a 95-year-old pensioner from Pakistan Post, Ghulam Hussain, who remembers a very different monetary culture talking to APP recalls.

For his generation, loose change was not something to be casually dismissed; it was part of everyday household life, saved in tin boxes, drawers and steel trunks, and counted because every coin had a value.

     The disappearance of small change raises an obvious question, where does all that money go?

     There is no reliable way to calculate how much loose change goes unreturned across Pakistan, as such money is rarely recorded. But if a petrol station leaves an average Rs. 3 from 1,500 daily transactions, it would amount to Rs. 4,500 a day or Rs. 135,000 a month. Applied hypothetically to 15,000 stations, that could exceed Rs. 24 billion a year. The figure is only illustrative, showing how tiny amounts can add up to billions.

     Ehtisham, a cash manager at a multinational company’s petrol pump in Islamabad talking to this scribe described a more complicated reality. He said the station generally does not charge customers when the difference is less than Rs. 5, but when the amount reaches Rs. 6 or more, the bill is often rounded up to Rs. 10. Customers rarely argue.

“Hundreds of customers leave change behind every day, but we have no idea where all this money goes,” he said, acknowledging how routinely small amounts are left unclaimed.

      One cashier, Mehboob, at a local pump, however, gave a different account while talking to this agency, saying the unreturned change is pooled and distributed among employees as a bonus.

The same problem appears at retailers’ shops. A customer owed Rs. 2 may receive a piece of candy instead. What looks like a harmless substitute is, in economic terms, a different transaction.

     “We simply accept it without protest. The amount is too small to argue over, and you can’t even buy a decent candy for Rs 2. Why waste time and hold up the queue?” said Amanat Ali, a consumer waiting at the billing counter of Islamabad Mall.

     For older Pakistanis, the contrast is striking.

     Generation X was taught the value of saving from an early age. Children often had small clay money banks, known as Kunji, where they saved their coins. Once the Kunji was full, it was broken open, and the savings were used to buy something valuable, such as a bicycle or another desired item. This simple tradition not only encouraged children to save but also taught them the importance and value of saved money.

     Dr Ashraf Wani, an analyst on economy said, “The real economic question is simple, why does the government continue to spend heavily on producing coins that increasingly sit unused? Monetary systems often move slower than consumer behaviour. Even when coins lose practical relevance, governments hesitate to withdraw them because of pricing, cash transactions, accounting and legal-tender requirements. But when a denomination is no longer circulating meaningfully, continued production deserves a hard economic review: are we manufacturing money, or merely manufacturing dead weight?”

     The State Bank of Pakistan demonetised 1, 2, 5, 10, 25 and 50 paisa coins from October 1, 2014, after their practical use had declined sharply. Today, even higher-value coins are increasingly losing relevance as prices rise, transactions are rounded off and digital payments offer an alternative, he said.

There is a practical reason for maintaining denominations even when their use declines: monetary systems need mechanisms for settling transactions and representing value. But the continued existence of a denomination does not guarantee that it will remain useful in the marketplace.

     Meanwhile, Pakistan’s economy is developing another way to solve the small-change problem: digital payments.

Digital payments are now offering a simple alternative. With Easypaisa, JazzCash, NayaPay and Raast, customers can pay the exact amount without waiting for coins.

     But digital payments have not made cash obsolete. Many Pakistanis still rely on physical currency, particularly for small purchases and in places where digital payment infrastructure, smartphones, connectivity or trust in electronic transactions may be limited.

     One thing is for sure, when a country’s smallest coins are still legally money but no longer worth using, they reveal something much bigger than loose change, they reflect how far prices have risen and purchasing power has fallen.

     The missing coins, therefore, tell a in larger story. They are not simply disappearing from pockets and shop counters; they are losing their economic relevance.