According to a survey conducted by Yonhap News Agency on the 18th, the Bank of Korea spends over 100 million Korean won (approximately 540000 yuan) annually on destroying damaged banknotes.
According to information submitted by the Bank of Korea to the Planning and Finance Committee of the National Assembly on the 18th, the cost of destroying banknotes in the first half of this year has reached 60 million won.
According to the report, on an annual basis, the destruction of waste banknotes cost 110 million Korean won in 2018, 130 million Korean won in 2019, 160 million Korean won in 2020, 110 million Korean won in 2021, and 110 million Korean won in 2022, with an annual average of over 100 million Korean won.
The Bank of Korea usually classifies paper currency recovered from the market as scrap due to damage, pollution, or burning, and entrusts professional enterprises to burn and destroy them. Unlike the situation where discarded coins can be sold to non-ferrous metal professional enterprises to generate annual revenue of hundreds of millions of Korean won, the disposal fee for waste banknotes only goes out but not in.
In terms of the number of banknotes scrapped, it was 590 million in 2018, 614 million in 2019, 609 million in 2020, 344 million in 2021, 357 million in 2022, and 212 million in the first half of this year alone.