Wed Jun 1, 2005
FRANKFURT (
Reuters) - Anyone hoarding old German coins now has a new reason to get rid of them - half-price phone calls at 50,000 German telephone booths.
Deutsche Telekom will swap mark coins for euros at a rate of one-to-one in telephone booths until the end of August, the telephone company said on Wednesday.
"We hope that we can persuade people to bring out their old coins," a spokesman said. "Coin telephones are still useful in this age of mobile phones."
The Bundesbank has estimated 7 billion euros worth of mark notes and coins are still in private hands. Notes and coins can still be swapped for euros at Bundesbank branches.
German shops occasionally run promotions allowing shoppers to use the old currency.
Software in pay phones has been reconfigured to allow them to accept 10 and 50 pfennig pieces, as well as one, two and five-mark coins, which were officially phased out after the introduction of euro coins and notes in 2002.
The one-to-one exchange rate effectively gives hoarders of old coins a 50 percent discount on the cost of calls, given the official exchange rate of one euro to 1.95583 DM.
A survey commissioned by news magazine Stern showed 60 percent of Germans still regularly convert sums in euros into marks when making large purchases and 56 percent said they would like the mark back.
