The tagline for the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) Annual Report 2023 – ‘Anchoring Stability and Sustainable Growth amid Challenging Times’ – takes note of the inflationary challenges and other pressures that the Philippines faced last year.

Many central banks continue to issue their annual reports for 2023 as the year progresses – including the Central Bank of Ireland (Banc Ceannais na hÉireann) and Reserve Bank of India.

The next edition of the Directory of Circulating Coins is currently being compiled, and is scheduled for publication this Autumn. First developed by the publishers of Currency News in 2014, the upcoming issue will be the fourth edition published.

The Royal Canadian Mint has published its annual report for 2023, noting a fall in revenue of 34% to C$2.162 billion and a reduction in profit by 52% to C$16.6 million. It has, however, noted a good start to the financial year despite decreased consolidated revenue.

The Mint of Poland and Monnaie de Paris have recently published their annual results for financial year, with the former noting a more than doubling of operating profit year-on-year and the latter a 9% increase in turnover from the previous year.

In its recently published Annual Report for the 2023 fiscal year, the United States Mint reported a 12.1% fall in revenue to $4.68 billion. In volume terms, the Mint shipped 10.5 billion circulation coins to the Federal Reserve Bank compared with 12.1 billion in 2022, a decrease of 1.6 billion coins (-13.2%).

After three successive years of bumper coin production to meet COVID-induced shortages in the cash cycle, volumes of coin produced for circulation by the US Mint in 2023 finally fell back to pre-pandemic levels.

As those involved in the industry continuously review the cost of coins, not just production but also distribution and circulation costs, so do government bodies to ensure that the currency systems in place are best suited to the areas in which they operate.

The European Commission has published the results of its latest Eurobarometer, a survey conducted to measure public perceptions of the euro currency among citizens living in euro-area countries.

In this article, we summarise the information from central bank reports on circulating and commemorative coins and numismatic programmes.