Owing to the enormous number of half-shekel coins required each year in Adar, these were greatly in demand, and the money-changers made a small fixed charge of an agio for changing whole into half shekels.
1989, Isaac Levy, translator, The Pentateuch (translation of, Samson Raphael Hirsch, Der Pentateuch, ubersetzt und erlautert), second edition, volume 2, Exodus, Judaica Press, page 582 (commentary to Exodus 30:16)