FX.co ★ Europeans keep 15 billion euro in former national currencies

Oddly enough, EU citizens turned out to be very careless about their savings. Europeans still keep bills and coins they used before the introduction of the single European currency.

We are not talking about a couple of bills one collects as a keepsake. In total, Europeans stored more than €15 billion. The Deutsche Mark leads the list of national currencies that Europeans “forgot” to change for euro: the amount of DM in the hands of the population is estimated at €6.5 billion. The second place was taken by the French franc – €1.9 billion. The Spanish peseta with €1.5 billion rounds out the top three. The Europeans' carelessness towards their own savings is surprising, especially since about one third of all old banknotes are now completely useless. Twelve European countries, including France, Italy, Finland, and Greece do not exchange former national currencies anymore.

The holders of the Deutsche Marks are more practical in this matter, the Bundesbank continues to exchange the old currency and do not plan to impose any time restrictions. On January 1, 1999, the euro was adopted as an overarching currency used for exchange between countries within the union. Within three years, the euro was established as an everyday currency and replaced the domestic currencies of many EU states.