Royal Mint's Bumper Year Despite COVID-19 and Fall in Circulating Coins

‘The past year has been an extraordinarily challenging one for the world as a whole, and The Royal Mint has been no exception’. These were the opening words in the Chairman’s Report for 2020/21.

In 2018 the organisation launched its ambition to ‘reinvent the Royal Mint for the 21st century’, the strategy focused on managing the impact of the declining use of cash, growing its consumer division and exploring new profitable ventures.

Three years later, the CEO, Anne Jessopp, was able to state ‘we have successfully reinvented The Royal Mint quicker than expected. with record breaking results and under conditions we could not possibly have envisaged at the start’.

In 2020-21, The Royal Mint (TRM) issued what is believed to be the lowest ever number of UK circulating coins, with no £1 coins issued at all. Despite this, its operating profit for the year (excluding exceptional items) was £12.7 million, compared with £1.1 million in the previous year on sales of £1.1 billion, which virtually doubled from the previous year.