The Royal Mint will cease making cash for different nations this yr, with 200 employees shifted from coinmaking to gold recycling, That is Cash can reveal.
The Mint makes cash for the UK and 28 different nations, at its website in Llantrisant, Wales.
The precise checklist of nations the Mint provides cash to at present is secret, however has included Australia, Jamaica, Iceland, Thailand, New Zealand and South Africa.
The Mint is the UK’s oldest firm, and first began making abroad cash in 1325, 699 years in the past.
UK focus: The Royal Mint will solely make foreign money for the UK from 2025. Pictured, its customer centre which is a part of the principle website in Llantrisant, Wales
However from December 2024, the Royal Mint will cease making these abroad cash, and can as an alternative solely give attention to making cash for the UK.
The falling demand for cash abroad is behind the choice, which impacts 200 employees.
The Mint solely made 56 problems with cash in 2022/23, in comparison with 339 in 2021/22 and 437 in 2020/21, in keeping with newest annual outcomes.
The Royal Mint’s foreign money arm loses cash, and made losses of £13.1million in 2022/23, up from £4.5million the yr earlier than.
As an alternative, the Mint will transfer into recovering gold utilized in circuit boards, equivalent to these present in cellphones and laptops.
The Mint is constructing a plant in Llantrisant that may get better 99 per cent of the gold utilized in digital objects.
The 200 affected employees shall be provided jobs within the gold recycling plant, which in principle ought to imply no redundancies. They’re additionally being shifted into jobs making jewelry and gold bullion.
However one Royal Mint employee mentioned to That is Cash: ‘This an enormous loss to the valleys coinciding with job losses within the metal works.’
A spokesman for The Royal Mint mentioned: ‘The decline of money use globally has been a catalyst for change on the Royal Mint, spurring innovation and a portfolio of latest companies.
‘The success of those rising companies means we’ll cease taking new abroad foreign money orders and switch staff into various roles.
‘This ushers in a brand new chapter for the Royal Mint, safeguarding our long-term employment and profitability.
‘We stay absolutely dedicated to creating UK cash, which has been on the coronary heart of the Royal Mint for 1,100 years.
‘Our experience in coin making has enabled our progress into areas equivalent to valuable metals funding and luxurious jewelry.
‘Now we have made a major funding of over £17million into new companies, together with a world-first plant to get better valuable metals from digital waste opening this yr.’
The reclaimed gold is used for the Royal Mint’s jewelry line, 886 – a reference to the yr the Mint was based.
Royal Mint chief govt Anne Jessopp based 866 in 2022 as a manner of diversifying the traditional establishment.
Gold costs stormed to a file excessive of $2,365 an oz in early April 2024.
For hundreds of years, the Royal Mint made cash on the Tower of London, however round 60 years in the past the Treasury-owned group moved its manufacturing facility to Llantrisant, round 10 miles north of Cardiff.
