The Bangladesh Bank has instructed banks in the country to ensure that Tk 1, Tk 2 and Tk 5 coins are smoothly exchanged for paper money.

The central bank issued this directive after learning that although lenders store a specified amount of coins in their vault, they do not exchange them as they misinterpreted a previous instruction to this end.

As such, customers are unable to collect coins from banks as needed, the Bangladesh Bank said in a circular yesterday.

In a previous circular, the Bangladesh Bank instructed banks to store a specified number of coins in each branch to meet the demand from daily normal transactions of the public.

Given the situation, the central bank gave new instructions to store 24,000 pieces of Tk 1 coins, 24,000 pieces of Tk 2 coins and 15,000 pieces of Tk 5 coins at every local and feeding branch.

Also, they were told to store 8,000 pieces of coins of all three denominations at all other branches.

Moreover, every sub-branch will have to store 2,000 pieces of Tk 1 coins, 2,000 pieces of Tk 2 coins and 1,000 pieces of Tk 5 coins in their respective vaults.

The Bangladesh Bank said the balance of coins at banks may decrease as a result of higher transactions.

So, if the balance decreases from the minimum required number, the banks should collect coins either from the public, its own feeding branch or, if necessary, the nearest stations of the central bank, it added.