No Fx Coins, We're Banks, Please

The level of services in Indian banks need to improve by leaps and bounds. Although some of the facilities offered by some of them are quite good and offer lots of conveniences, some of their policies can be very strange. For instance, exchanging foreign currency. I went on an international trip last year and again, last month. Both these times I took foreign exchange (fx) from my bank, ICICI Bank. Both the times they did not give me coins, even though I wanted coins. Whenever we travel abroad, its always advisable to carry some coins with you, to give lose change to be able to buy small items, like say under a dollar, or to make telephone calls from public telephone booths.

Upon returning back to India, most of us usually give away the left-over fx in exchange for Indian rupees. Now, it's quite natural that when we go abroad, we're bound to accumulate coins. The longer you stay, the more the number of coins, both in quantity and denomination, you tend to accumulate. But when you go to exchange your fx back to your bank, they do not take back coins. ICICI Bank refused to take back coins from me. Now what am I supposed to do with these coins? I asked ICICI Bank the reason for not accepting coins, but they were not able to give me any satisfactory answer. Aren't coins legal currency? If a bank is authorised to deal with fx, the banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India should make it mandatory for them to not just give coins to customer who want them, but to also take them back when customers come in to return them.