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The Royal Mint's currency arm loses money, and made losses of £13.1million in 2022/23, up from £4.5million the year before.
Making a loss out of making money! Do you think they have to mint their own overtime?!? /j (GNU Terry Pratchet)
It's effectively a luxury item right, you would have thought that the market for that would have been fine? Unless they are just being undercut too much by foreign manufacturers?
"On 31 December 2009, rather than being fully privatised, the mint ceased to be an executive agency and its assets were vested in a limited company, Royal Mint Ltd. The owner of the new company became The Royal Mint trading fund, which itself continued to be owned by HM Treasury. As its sole shareholder, the mint pays an annual dividend of £4 million to the Treasury, with the remaining profits being reinvested into the mint.[58] In 2015, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a £20 billion privatisation drive to raise funds, with the Royal Mint being up for sale alongside other institutions including the Met Office and Companies House.[55]"
"Then in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG), a digital gold currency that uses blockchain to trade and invest in gold. Operated by CME Group, the technology is to be[out of date?] created by technology companies AlphaPoint and BitGo.[69]"
Bring it back into public ownership. It's been partially privatised and the vultures are extracting what they can.
It's not completely nonsensical for the government to lose a small margy on making currency. It's useful and the harder it is to counterfeit the better.
But both "New Labour" and the Conservatives have a lot to answer for when it comes to our national assets being lost.
Prediction: Royal Mint will cease to exist within the decade. King William coinage will be minted in the European Union.