By BART JARMAN
A new coin machine will greet you when you walk into the Smith's Food & Drug in Provo.
Coinstar, a national company out of Bellevue, Wash., recently expanded its operations to Utah by installing 20 self-service coin processing machines.
'We are pleased to provide our customers with an easy way to convert their coins into spendable cash,' said Shelley Thomas, vice president of public affairs for Smith's. 'We believe that the Coinstar machine is a tremendous service to our customers.'
The Coinstar machine accepts loose, unsorted change, counts and sorts it and returns a voucher customers can use at the check stand for cash or for in-store purchases. The machines are capable of processing between 600 and 800 coins per minute.
Dennis Johnson, head of public affairs for Coinstar, said the Provo Smith's is one of the top five in the state after only two weeks of operation.
'The convenience of a new service that saves Smith's Food & Drug customers the time and aggravation of sorting and wrapping their coins will allow more and more consumers to discover the buying power of all those loose coins stashed away in their homes,' said Jens Molbak founder and president of Coinstar.
Most transactions have been around $20, said Dan Haderlie, assistant manager at the Provo Smith's.
'Sometimes people bring in a whole bottle of change that they have collected, but most of the time it's just some money in a cup off their dresser,' he said.
According to the U.S. Mint, $6 billion to $10 billion of coins are currently circulating in the United States. They estimate currently 132 billion pennies in circulation alone and roughly 2.5 billion coins are out of circulation.
Coinstar reports the average transaction is about $30 and their highest coin drop over $8,000.
A fee of 7.5 percent is charged for each transaction.
The average transaction translates to a fee of about $2.50, which is a minor investment compared to the time it takes to hand wrap the coins and take them to a bank, Johnson said.
Johnson also said the company definitely plans to expand their Salt Lake operations.
'During the first few weeks we see a lot of pent up demand,' Johnson said. Many people have been holding onto their coins jars for years, he explained.
The Provo location has seen an increase in customers using the machine due to additional advertising and word-of-mouth, Haderlie said. No one seems concerned about the fees that are charged, Haderlie said.