Central Banks and Cash Round-Up

Continuing with the periodic series of articles covering cash information in central bank annual reports, this month we travel to Korea, and also to South America, with a review of two countries, one small and stable (Uruguay) and the other larger and not so stable (Venezuela).

Bank of Korea (BOK)

Cash in circulation: the BOK issued new currency worth 26.3 trillion won (KRW) in 2023 while withdrawing KRW 20.1 trillion from circulation, resulting in KRW 180.9 trillion of currency in circulation at year-end – a modest 3.6% increase from 2022.

By denomination, the amount of 50,000 and 1,000 won banknotes in circulation increased compared to the end of the previous year, while that of 10,000 won and 5,000 won banknotes and coins showed a downward trend.

KOMSCO produced and supplied BoK with 530 million banknotes and 101.05 million coins, versus 710 million and 82.7 million in 2023 (down 25.4% and up 22.2% respectively). The slowdown in demand for banknotes was attributed to the opportunity cost of holding banknotes increasing in line with rising interest rates.