§ Mr. KidneyTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for what reason the Royal Mint directed banks not to accept £5 commemorative coins from their customers, but to direct customers to the Post Office. [12336]
§ Ruth KellyA Royal Mint team was established in order to review the system for issuing and returning UK circulation commemorative crown coins. This was a result of growing concerns regarding the total volume of returns, a number of 25p (5 shilling) crowns mixed in with consignments of £5 crowns, abuse of the current distribution system and to monitor any counterfeits.
In order for the Royal Mint to log and analyse the returns we agreed with the UK banks and the Post Office that for ease of handling, processing and payment, all commemorative crowns should be returned via the Post Office. So, the UK banks were advised to refer customers wishing to repatriate crowns to their nearest post office whereby they can exchange them for goods and services.
Despite this agreement we continue to receive a small number of these crowns from some banks however, we are trying to encourage them to channel all returns via the Post Office.
This exercise is currently on-going and for the reasons outlined above we would not want to change the arrangement in the immediate future.