I was able to try the new Coin Deposit Machine launched by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas earlier today when I attended an event at the SM Mall of Asia with Duey from Unbox.ph. Here’s what I thought of the service on my first use, and some notes to ponder on where can you find one.
The main idea of the new Coin Deposit Machine is to let people go of their pocketed coins and deposit them conveniently in exchange for legal tender or other available payment methods. Since the machine we saw is in the SM Mall of Asia area, the available options here include GCash and, surprisingly, an SM Voucher. BSP is also in talks with Maya to get their services up on the machine for people to have more choices from.
Using the machine is easy: You’d have to go through several toggles on the screen, then Press ‘A’ when you’ve agreed to terms and conditions and ready to drop your coins in the designated area.
The machine then automatically collects the coins and sorts it out. BSP’s Coin Deposit Machine accepts both the old generations coins (the ones with the gold five-peso, and two-colored ten-peso coins) as well as BSP’s new-generation coins (nickel-colored coins of various styles and sizes for denominations, up to the bronze-toned 20-peso coin). When the coin is seen as unfavorable, you’ll have to get it from under the machine and try it again (by pressing A again). People we’ve talked to told us that the machine may not be that calibrated to accept all coins of varying conditions yet.
Once you’re done, you’re set to press B to get your first receipt confirming the amount you have deposited to the machine. Your attention is then brought back to the machine where you will have the option to choose between the following:
- GCash – you’ll need to input only your number. Another receipt will be printed containing the transaction details, and the crediting is surprisingly real-time. There is no transaction fee in this, as we got our amount in full.
- SM Voucher – the machine will print another receipt containing a bar code for your transaction, which you can use at any SM-affiliated store.
The process is really easy and straightforward. In the SM Mall of Asia area, you can find the coin deposit machines at the SM Department Store (Main Mall), SM Supermarket, and SM Hypermarket. There are also machines deployed at Festival Mall as part of the launch rollout, with the BSP hoping the public can pick this up to deploy more CDMs in more locations across the country in the coming months.
