By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent
The Royal Mint calls its new £1 coin a "pioneering" design and says that it will be much harder to counterfeit. So how is the coin more secure?
The two-metal design, similar to the £2 coin, and the 12-edged shape are basic measures intended to drive up the cost of producing a counterfeit.
The real innovation is the Integrated Secure Identification System, known as ISIS. This applies "banknote-level security" to coins and is the result of a £2m research and development project from the Royal Mint.
The 1.5 billion pound coins currently in circulation - about 3% of which are counterfeit - use an electromagnetic signature as proof of their authenticity.
When a coin passes through an electromagnetic field, it gives off a distinct pattern of "ripples" - and this pattern is its signature. The problem is, this signature can fluctuate over time, and it is relatively easy for forgers to approximate.
The ISIS system, though, uses an additive substance embedded in the coin when it is minted.
A similar system is already used in the fuel and perfume industries, but this is the first time the technology has been applied to coinage.
The Royal Mint will not say how much the new coin's introduction will cost The Royal Mint has also created new hand-held and desktop detection machines, as well as a low-cost system which can be retrofitted to existing vending machines.
This means coins can be authenticated at any point in the cash cycle, rather than being hauled back to banks for analysis.
The Royal Mint's description of the technologies, given at various industry conferences, has "not been too concrete", according to Ursula Kampann, the publisher of CoinsWeekly.
Nor has the company disclosed how much the ISIS system will cost to implement.
The Automatic Vending Association has estimated it could cost as much as £400m, but the Mint has said only that it will be "significantly" more than the £2m development cost.
ISIS is also only one of many competing anti-forgery technologies being developed by mints around the world.
According to Mrs Kampann, the most interesting question is which one of these systems being developed in different countries will gain broad acceptance?
Mints are hoping to offset their research costs by striking coins for other nations.
The Royal Mint currently produces coins for 60 other countries and Wednesday's high-profile Budget Day announcement is an attempt to get a head start with the next generation of coinage.
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