General Chat

Paper £5 notes will be withdrawn on 5 May. You should be able to exchange them at a bank, Building Soc or PO after then, or send to the Bank of England if they refuse.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/Pages/about/faqs.aspx

Retailers are within their rights to refuse to accept the paper version in payment from 5 May.

Remember to check your wallets, purses and any 'safe place'.

I have had a search around and not found any so hope we are ok. :-) :-)

Banks usually accept them for several years and shops for a while too. The fact they are no longer legal tender doesn't mean they are worthless. In fact Scottish notes have never been legal tender, even in Scotland.....!

My wife found some old £20's she had forgotten about a few years back and the bank took them without question six years after the ceased to be legal tender. Some banks may require you to have an account if you have more than the odd one though.

TBH - its not often we are given £5 notes.
However, children or older adults, who prefer paying with cash, may have some knocking around.

Banks are pretty good about taking in old issues even after a number of years. Some retailers may refuse them even after a couple of weeks. Too much hassle for them?

Interesting to see than in 1971, at the time of decimalisation, 40pence would have bought you what a £5 note does today.....!

And, even more, because we earn around 2.25 times more now than we did in 1971, 40 pence back then would have felt more like £12.25 does in our pocket today.

And how about getting rid of all the small coinage under 10 pence - surely that must come before long?

that's ridiculous!!

then the minimum increase on anything would have to be 10 p

bad enough getting rid of the 1/2 p's


but you are right I recall a bounty bar being 4 p (10d) now they are nearly a pound!!!!

petrol at the mo is around 121.9 p / litre............how did they get that?


by relying on us as consumers to round UP our purchase


is there a decimal place on the counter on petrol pumps?

I think not!!

Pay has gone up a lot more than 2.5 times since 1971!
At least x 20.

I was in the bank today collecting change for work and the bank told me that Scottish paper and cotton £5 notes will cease to legal tender on Friday May 5th too.

Rollo, I meant pay has increased 2.5 times more than prices have. Sorry if I didn't make it clear.

So yes, in £ pence terms, more than 20 times.

Bank notes produced by Scottish banks have never been legal tender, even in Scotland.

Bank of England notes are only legal tender in England and Wales, meaning there are no legal tender notes in Scotland at all....!

In lieu of £5 notes if you could see your way to send me your account names, numbers sort codes and security number,



that would do nicely, thank you...