News: the UK's Royal Mint has unveiled a revised £1 coin with 12 sides, which it hopes will make the currency harder to forge.

The Royal Mint says it based the dodecagonal design on the threepenny piece used before the UK switched to the decimal system.

The coin features a bimetallic design similar to the current £2 coin and the mint claims it "will be the most secure circulating coin in the world to date".

The new design will aim to reduce the amount of counterfeit versions produced of the current pound, which has been in circulation for over 30 years.

"The current £1 coin design is now more than thirty years old and it has become increasingly vulnerable to counterfeiting over time," said Adam Lawrence, chief executive of The Royal Mint. "It is our aim to identify and produce a pioneering new coin which helps to reduce the opportunities for counterfeiting."

A public design competition will be held at a later date to choose the design for the tails side before the coin is introduced in 2017.

Last week the United States Mint unveiled domed coins to commemorate 75 years of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.