Expensive washing? Australia loses $8 billion in cash

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"They estimated between 15 and 35 per cent of all cash is doing its job - allowing Australians to buy everyday goods and services. But that leaves a lot of notes - at least 65 per cent of them - doing something other than being a means of exchange.

Between 10 and 20 per cent have been hoarded by Australians with another 15 per cent sent overseas for cash hoarders there.

The shadow economy, a notoriously difficult sector to measure, is thought to take up between 4 and 8 per cent of the outstanding notes. Between $40 million and $1 billion is held by drug dealers alone at any one time before they convert their earnings to assets.

And then there's remaining cash that has simply disappeared.

'This suggests that $4 billion to $8 billion, or roughly 5 to 10 per cent of all banknotes on issue have been lost, destroyed, forgotten about, or are sitting in numismatic collections,' the researchers found."

From "Expensive washing? Australia loses $8 billion in cash".

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