Currency in circulation

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In monetary economics, the currency in circulation in a country is the value of currency or cash (banknotes and coins) that has ever been issued by the country’s monetary authority less the amount that has been removed. More broadly, money in circulation is the total money supply of a country, which can be defined in various ways, but always includes currency and also some types of bank deposits, such as deposits at call.

The published amount of currency in circulation tends to be overstated by an unknown amount. For example, money may have been destroyed, or stored as a form of security (the proverbial “money under the mattress”), or by coin collectors, or held in reserve within the banking system, including currency held by foreign central banks as a foreign exchange reserve asset.