A new 12-sided £1 coin becomes legal tender from Tuesday 28 March with the first redesign for more than 30 years, in a bid to tackle the rise of counterfeits, and will replace existing round pound coins over a six month transition period
Some 1.5bn of the new-style £1 coins are being produced by the Royal Mint at a rate of up to four million a day, and these will be distributed to banks and retailers over the next six months. Round £1 coins will be returned to the Royal Mint - some of which will be reused to make the new coin.
The 12-sided £1 is designed to be highly secure and looks very different. New security features include a hologram-like image that changes from a ‘£’ symbol to the number ‘1’ when the coin is seen from different angles. It also has micro-lettering and milled edges.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe, commercial secretary to the Treasury, said: ‘This is a giant step forward to help stamp out counterfeit coins and save businesses and the taxpayer millions of pounds every year.
‘Today marks the start of the six-month transition period, so I’d urge everyone to make sure they spend, return or donate their old round pounds before 15 October.’
Although round £1 coins will lose their legal tender status on 15 October 2017, people will still be able to return old coins to their bank after this time.
The switch to a new £1 has meant that vending machine operators, parking machine suppliers, locker providers and others, who use the coin to operate customer facilities have had to carry out an upgrade across their estate.
David Smith, head of public affairs and research at the British Parking Association, said: ‘The BPA has been working closely with The Royal Mint and HM Treasury to ensure that its members, who include local authorities, parking operators, and parking machine manufacturers, are ready to accept the new £1 coin wherever possible at launch.
‘Most of the major parking machine manufacturers are positive they will be able to manage the upgrade in a timely manner, having begun upgrades over 12 months ago.’
However, high street chain Tesco has had to admit it has failed to convert all of its supermarket trolleys to accept the new coin in time, and so has announced it will now unlock 100,000 of its coin-operated shopping trolleys while it completes its programme to update to the new 12-sided coin.
Information about the new £1 coin is here.
