The Treasury has today hit back at claims it has plans to abolish one and two pence pieces, following its annoncement that no further copper coins will be produced in 2024.
An HM Treasury spokesperson denied this move heralded the often-predicted demise of the coins, and added that the lack of orders was simply down to having enough coins in circulation already. “We’re not scrapping 1p or 2p coins,” they said. “We’re confident there are enough coins in the system without the need to order more this year.”
In fact, production of the coins has been ‘paused’ before, with spells in both the early 1970s and 80s when certain smaller value pieces saw their production temporarily put on hold, with none minted.
The story follows on from a UK Finance report earlier this month which revealed that cash payments are on the decline, accounting for 12% of transactions in 2023, compared to 14% in 2022. However, drilling down into the figures, cash remains the second most frequently used payment method in the UK, although this figure varies slightly with age.
In addition, any IT outages will of course mean cash comes to the fore in convenience stores, and with digital payment systems down they have regularly been forced to revert to a ‘cash only’ transaction process – hinting any death knells for coins might well be premature.
Adrian Buckle, head of research at UK Finance, said: “There’s a huge amount of choice available to consumers in terms of how they make payments, and while we can definitely see the continued popularity of debit cards and contactless this doesn’t mean we’re on our way to becoming a cashless society.”
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