Maw Comms news
21 Mar, 17 Brits sitting on £420m worth of soon-to-be useless money
Current £1 coins to become worthless in October 2017
As the new 12-sided £1 coins come into circulation next week, Gocompare.com Money has found that Britain has a collective £420m worth of soon-to-be useless currency in coin jars and glove boxes.
New research commissioned by the comparison site reveals that nearly half (49%) of Brits say they have £1 coins lying around in the house and in their cars – worth a collective £420m.
Those who don’t round-up up their old £1 coins, could lose an average of £17.55 each when the currency becomes worthless in a just few months’ time.
The survey** of 2,000 UK adults found;
- 18% of adults have £1 coins in pots of loose change lying around their home;
- 13% say their kids keep £1 coins in their piggy banks;
- 17% of Brits keep £1 coins in their car to use in supermarket trolleys;
- 15% of people keep £1 coins in the glove box of their car to pay for parking;
- 14% say they have pound coins down the back of the sofa.
Matt Sanders from Gocompare.com Money commented, “The new state-of-the-art, £1 coin will be rolled out on 28 March 2017. Heralded as the most secure in the world, the new coin has a range of security features against counterfeits.
“To allow for the change, from the end of March to mid-October both the old and new £1 coins will be in circulation at the same time and will be accepted by shops and banks. After 15 October 2017, the old £1 coins will no-longer be legal tender.
“So, if you’ve got a collection of old style £1 coins in a piggy bank, coin jar or if you keep some in the car to pay for parking or to use to release the lock on a supermarket trolley – you’ll need to round them up and either spend them or pay them into the bank before the October cut-off date. Otherwise, you could be left out of pocket.”
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For further information please contact:
Martyn John or Rhian Davies at Gocompare.com on 01633 654 725 / 01633 655 209
Gordon, Jason or Liz at MAW Communications on 01603 505 845
Notes to editors:
*The UK Adult population (20+) estimated to be 48,913,000 (Source: Annual mid-year population estimates for the UK, 2014). 49% of UK adults say they have £1 coins lying about their homes, equating to 23.9m people. 23.9m multiplied by the average value of £1 coins people estimate they have lying around their home (£17.55) equates to £420.5m.
**Survey of 2,000 UK adults carried out by OnePoll (8 to 13 March 2017). Percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number.
Gocompare.com is a comparison website that enables people to compare the costs and features of a wide variety of insurance policies, financial products and energy tariffs. Gocompare.com does not charge people to use its services, and it does not accept advertising or sponsored listings, so all product comparisons are unbiased. Gocompare.com makes its money through fees paid by the providers of products that appear on its various comparison services when a customer buys through the site. Gocompare.com does not sell its customers’ data.
When it launched in 2006, it was the first comparison site to focus on displaying policy details rather than just listing prices, with the aim of helping people to make better-informed decisions when buying their insurance. Gocompare.com has remained dedicated to helping people choose the most appropriate products rather than just the cheapest, and has teamed up with Defaqto, the independent financial researcher, to integrate additional policy information into a number of its insurance comparison services. This allows people to compare up to an extra 30 features of cover.
Gocompare.com is the only comparison website to be invited to join the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
