MANILA - The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on Sunday called for a law against hoarding of extremely large volume of coins after some P50 million worth of loose change were found in Quezon City last week.

The central bank said it "believes that the criminalization of this activity reinforces continuing efforts to maintain and protect the integrity of Philippine currency."

A check on the respective websites of the House of Representatives and Senate showed that proposed measures penalizing the hoarding of legal tender coins have been tackled in 2014.

"Coin hoarding results in the inefficient circulation of coins and prevents their primary use as medium of exchange. It hampers the efficient flow of transactions and causes an artificial shortage, which is disruptive to the financial system," the BSP said.

The public is urged to refrain from "unnecessarily accumulating coins and instead use them to pay for goods and services or deposit them in banks," it added.

The central bank, in a joint operation with the National Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Customs, and the Philippine Coast Guard, inspected P50 million worth of 1-peso coins discovered in a warehouse in Barangay Laging Handa, Quezon City.

The coins were from "various design series" and are being tested to confirm their authenticity, the BSP said.

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