Saturday 26 September 2009

Coin counting machine at CommBank

When DS1 and I went into a local branch of the Commonwealth Bank last week we noticed a shiny new coin counting machine had been installed. You pour you collection of coins into a tray, press a button and Hey! Presto! the coins are swept into the guts of the machine and a docket is printed out showing how much your coins were worth (you have to assume the machine never makes mistakes!). If you're a CommBank customer and use the docket to deposit the funds into your CommBank account there's no charge. But if you're not a CommBank customer you'll be hit with a massive 10% "service fee". We also found out that you have to use the docket to deposit the money that day (I suppose there's some sort of checking done when the docket is processed to verify the amount matches what the machine has taken - the docket would probably be easy to forge).

As the branch is open on Saturday afternoon when DS1 does his busking, I'll put a note with his account details into his busking bag so he can have his earnings counted and deposited into his account as soon as he finished busking. Currently we have to lug his bag of coins home, manually sort and bag them, and later make a trip to the bank to have the bagged coins deposited.

It will be interesting to see how the coin counting machine reacts if there are some foreign coins mixed in with the Australian coins - DS1 often gets some NZ, Chinese or Malaysian coins thrown into his busking collection box.

We'll probably just use the CommBank coin counting machine for counting and depositing the 'silver' (<$1) coins, and still take the 'gold' ($1 and $2) coins to put in his money boxes. DS1 usually gives a dollar or two of his earnings to his younger brother, and deposits the bulk of his income into his St George account so it can be transferred easily into the higher interest "online" savings account.

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4 comments:

Kevin Surbaugh said...

my credit union added one about a year ago. I like it. Before, I would have to take my coins to the credit union and have them run the coins through the (machine) coin counter behind the counter. Now I can do it and have it done before I get to the tellers window.

money counter said...

coin counters are the best way to count all that shrapnel you saved in your piggy bank. before, in some banks, they have this policy that in order for them to accept anny coins, you should have them rolled up first. i have always wondered why the coin counter behind their counter wasn't used..

Jacob said...

i would love to ask them to count my coins using coin counter machine but i am not registered at comm bank. ToT

enoughwealth@yahoo.com said...

Non-Comm bank customers can also use the coin counting machine, but they charge a fee. The St George bank nearby also has a coin counting machine (free for their customers), but only the bigger branches have one.