This is the second webinar in a series organised by the Mint Directors’ Conference. The last year has seen payments in general, and coins in particular, disrupted by the pandemic. As yet the future ‘steady state’ is unclear but sufficient time has passed to consider some of the big questions raised by what has happened. Although the focus is on coins, the webinar will consider payments in the round.

The webinar is in three parts. Firstly panellists will be asked about their experiences in the last 12 months, how did changing consumer, retail and banking behaviour impact payments, and coins in particular, and what decisions and actions had to be taken. Secondly, there will be a discussion about where they think payments will land. What decisions need to be taken now, what are the long term affects that they believe will stick going forwards and what options need to be considered and prepared for? Some of these are policy decisions, some operational. Given all stakeholders are likely to be affected, how do they work together, who faces the biggest change? Finally, panellists will take questions from the audience.

The panel is well placed for this with Kathleen Young, Senior Vice President of FedCash Business Operations for the Federal Reserve System’s Cash Product Office, Jim Douthitt, Head of Treasury at Coinstar who has worked on the Coin Taskforce with Kathleen, David Hensley who is on the Access to Cash committee in the UK, runs a payment consultancy and used to be responsible for coins as part of the UK’s Cash Services, and Ross MacDiarmid, recently retired from running the Royal Australian Mint and who is Chair of the MDC.