The deadline for spending the old £1 coin is just a week away (though everyone still seems a little confused about this), so it’s time to get rid of those round pounds.
If you really want to do some good though, why not donate your old coins to charity?
Research by YouGov for the Royal Mint actually found that around 5% of the public was already planning on donating their leftover coins to a good cause, so here are some initiatives to consider...
The Royal Mint and the Treasury have partnered up with Children in Need to encourage the public to donate their old coins to Pudsey’s Round Pound Countdown
Epilepsy Action is running their Pound For Pound initiative to encourage people to give their last pound to help fund campaigns to fight the condition.
Children’s trust The Rainbow Charity are running an initiative called Good Old Pounds to ask people to get involved in collecting old pound coins to help fund their work.
Poverty Child is offering freepost envelopes to anyone who wants to send in their old £1 coins to help their work improving life for street and slum children around the world.
Born Free is encouraging animal lovers to donate their old pound coins to help protect lions, tigers, elephants and pangolins, alongside other endangered wildlife, before the coins become “extinct”.
Major banks and building societies will accept deposits of old coins after 15 October, although they are not required to indefinitely. No concrete cut-off date has been set.
Post offices may also exchange coins after this date, though people should check with their local branch.
Old coins can be returned to the Treasury, although in a further display of the confusion which appears to be reigning around the switchover, in August the Treasury revealed half of all coins that were being returned are actually the new ones.
Some shops have said they will continue to accept the old round pound after the 15 October deadline, while other retailers have admitted to problems with technical glitches and trollies that are still to be switched over to accept the new coin.
Shops and other cash-handling businesses have been warned they must take steps to prepare for the changeover:
check whether they operate equipment that handles the £1 coin.
contact their equipment supplier to find out if they need to make any adaptations or upgrades.
make the necessary changes to their coin handling equipment.
train their staff on the features of the new £1 coin.
make arrangements with their bank or cash in transit provider to return the current £1 coin and new £1 coin in separate packaging.
Those abroad who may have a stash of the old coins can also sell them on sites such as Leftover Currency.
The new 12-sided coins, created using “cutting edge technology”, entered circulation in January 2017 in a bid to cut down on counterfeiting.
In May 2015, a survey by the Royal Mint found that one in 40 (2.55%) of all pound coins were actually fake.