NT$1 Billion to be Made Up of NT$10 Coins Next Year|夾娃娃機盛行 央行明年鑄10億10元幣

Taiwan's Central Bank has earmarked a budget of close to NT$ 1.7 billion minting coins in 2019, of which NT$ 1 billion is reserved for minting NT$ 10 coins. The Central Bank said that the rising popularity of claw machines has led to an increase in demand for NT$ 10 coins. On the other hand, some members of the public believe that the claw machine fever has subsided, and that many of the machine owners are accepting mobile payment, so there's no need to release additional coins.


Many exchange bills to coins of smaller amount in order to operate the claw machines. The items available for grab in the machines are getting increasing varied, some machine owners even place snacks to attract more customers. Taiwan's Central Bank estimates that there is a significant increase in the demand of NT$ 10 coins, and it has reserved NT$ 1 billion from the NT$ 1.7 billion coin minting budget in the upcoming year just to mint NT$ 10 coins.

I think the claw machines are losing their popularity. So I don't think there's a need to mint more coins.

Some claw machines accept its own replacement coins. Therefore the users could just purchase those coins.

Some claw machines accept EasyCard, a common Metro card in Taiwan. The Executive Yuan also announced a goal of having at 90 percent of transactions done through mobile payment by 2025. The Central Bank said that their decision to increase the production quantity of NT$ 10 coins while at the same time pushing for cashless transitions is to respond to the market demand.

(Does the coins serve as replacement for the machines?) Yes. (So they are replacements, although they have actual monetary value?) Yes, when society has a demand for something, we must responded to the demand and increase the amount of coins on the market.

The Central Bank also called on the public to bring out their coins at home and to allow them to flow back to the market in order to reduce the need to additional coins.