- Royal Mint has been making coins for overseas nations since 1325
- Starting in December 2024, the Mint will stop manufacturing foreign coins entirely.
The Royal Mint will stop making coins for other countries this year, with 200 employees switching from coin manufacturing to gold recycling, This is Money can reveal.
The Mint manufactures coins for the United Kingdom and 28 other countries, at its headquarters in Llantrisant, Wales.
The exact list of countries the Mint currently supplies coins to is secret, but includes Australia, Jamaica, Iceland, Thailand, New Zealand and South Africa.
The Mint began manufacturing coins abroad in 1325, 699 years ago.
UK Focus: The Royal Mint will only produce currency for the UK from 2025. Pictured is its visitor centre, which is part of the main site in Llantrisant, Wales.
But from December 2024, the Royal Mint will stop making these foreign coins and will instead focus solely on making coins for the United Kingdom.
The drop in demand for coins abroad is behind this decision, which affects 200 employees.
The Mint only made 56 coin issues in 2022/23, compared to 339 in 2021/22 and 437 in 2020/21, according to the latest annual results.
The Royal Mint’s monetary arm loses money and posted losses of £13.1m in 2022/23, down from £4.5m the previous year.
Instead, the Mint will focus on recovering gold used in circuit boards, such as those found in cell phones and laptops.
The Mint is building a plant in Llantrisant that can recover 99 per cent of the gold used in electronics.
The 200 affected employees will be offered jobs at the gold recycling plant, which in theory should not mean layoffs.
But a Royal Mint worker told This is Money: “This is a huge loss for the valleys which coincides with the loss of jobs in the steelworks.”
A spokesperson for The Royal Mint said: ‘The decline in the use of cash globally has been a catalyst for change at The Royal Mint, spurring innovation and a pipeline of new businesses.
‘The success of these growing businesses means we will stop accepting new foreign exchange orders from abroad and transfer employees to alternative roles.
‘This marks the start of a new chapter for The Royal Mint, safeguarding our jobs and long-term profitability.
‘We remain fully committed to making UK coins, which has been at the heart of The Royal Mint for 1,100 years.
‘Our experience in coin manufacturing has allowed us to grow in areas such as precious metals investing and luxury jewellery.
“We have made a significant investment of more than £17 million in new business, including the world’s first plant to recover precious metals from e-waste due to open this year.”