It may sound crazy that an old currency is still being hoarded 16 years after the introduction of the euro. However, the Germans still have been hoarding Deutsche Marks and coins worth some 6.5 billion euros. Why? Germany never put a time limit upon when you had to swap out the old currency. About a third of old currency notes of the Eurozone are now totally worthless. Portugal gave the shortest exchange period to its citizens of the country – just one year.
Looking at the total amount of notes outstanding from all Eurozone members, it reaches about 15 billion euros. Even the French are hoarding about 1.8 billion euros worth of old French francs and the Spanish are hoarding about around 1.6 billion euros worth of old Spanish pesetas.
Interesting how many people just held on to the old currencies just in case. You never know!
