How the RCM Manages Canada’s Circulation Coins in Real-Time

Last month, the International Association of Currency Affairs (IACA) held a webinar titled ‘Cash Visibility: How the Royal Canadian Mint Manages Canada’s Circulation Coins in Real-Time’. As the hosts of the webinar, the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) detailed their strategies and systems for managing cash visibility for coin in Canada.

The same topic was also covered at the recent Coin Conference in Lisbon by the RCM’s CEO, Marie Lemay.

In Canada, the RCM, unlike many other mints, is not only the manufacturer of circulating coin, but also the country’s end-to-end coin lifecycle manager. On behalf of the Department of Finance of the Government of Canada, the RCM has taken on a much broader role across the coin ecosystem. In addition to coin design and production, it also engages in coin forecasting, distribution, recirculation, recycling and monitoring to ensure an efficient and sustainable coin supply chain.

Earlier difficulties included inefficient coin circulation, which included no clear view of the cash ecosystem, periodic shortages or excessive inventories, lack of commercial stakeholder collaboration, and the RCM’s own challenges of under- or overproduction.