Persona non grata for central bank

By Kim Rahn

On Oct. 29 last year, Shahar Ronnie, an Australian, visited the Bank of Korea (BOK) in central Seoul.

He brought a huge bag, about 60 liters in volume, which was full of Korean money, ranging from 10-won coins to 50,000 won-notes. The notes and coins were very old in general, many of the bills being partially torn. Some were old designs that have not been printed for decades.

Ronnie wanted to change the old money into “new,” as it is one of the banks’ jobs to change damaged, unusable money into new currency. For a torn note, banks change it by measuring the size of the remaining part. You can get a new 1,000-won bill for more than three fourths of a 1,000 won-bill and 500 won for anywhere between two fifths and three fourths.

“He came around noon, and demanded we change it as soon as possible, saying he had to take a flight at 6 p.m. But the amount of money was so huge, so we had 12 staffers engaged in the money counting,” Ahn Gyu-wan, a director of the BOK, said.

It took three and a half hours to count it, with the total reaching 68.5 million won. Staffers there couldn’t do any other work during the time.

Such occasions take place several times a year, according to the bank. In October, a man from Nauru, a small island country in the South Pacific, changed old Korean money worth 22 million won into new bills.

In November, a Chinese man brought 2.4 million won with 3,200 500-won coins. Last month, an American also brought 8.9 million won. People from Thailand and China also frequently come with small sums of money.

“However, they are not really welcome, because they bring a huge amount of money at a time and the counting process paralyze our other duties,” the director said.