manda99

LOL! I was doing the "It's pounds sterling! It says right on the note!"

jedikiah

I was hoping it would continue with: 'it isn't even legal tender in Scotland'.

ppp909

London cabbies are generally an awful bunch. Avoid them if you can and get a minicab or uber. You'll pay less and will be less likely to suffer verbal abuse.
Nothing wrong with Scottish notes in London. Venture out into the home counties and you might meet more resistance. Incidentally, I usually get cash out of the Natwest in George Street when I'm in Edinburgh. They dish out English cash.

Clint Bint

There are currently around 21,000 black cabs licensed in London so that reads like a bit of a generalisation.
In my experience of 30 years in London I found cabbies to be generally friendly and knowledgeable,except perhaps when I wished to travel south of the river at night.

flatlander

Londoners are pretty used to Scottish notes; presenting them in rarely-visited parts of the south can cause raised eyebrows, but it is still rare.

The best use of Scottish notes I have had so far was on an Easyjet flight from Stansted to Amsterdam where the (Edinburgh-based) cabin manager announced jokingly "We'll only be taking Scottish money on this flight" to the front row. I offered him exact change in English money or a Scottish £20 note. He wasn't expecting that but decided to take the exact change

I agree I wouldn't try it with £50 or £100 notes.

LondonElite

You mean sauf Landiin? I know, what a pain!

KenJohn

Why HSBC?
NatWest is owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland after all.
Lloyds Bank owns The Bank of Scotland.
Any bank that you bank with will definitely accept them as a deposit to your account. Banks do not like changing bank notes (even changing Bank of England notes for denominations) outright as they are exposed to counterfeit risk for no return.

No problems using them at chain stores and restaurants.

:D!

Because HSBC has a reputation for money-laundering

The OP doesn't have a UK bank account or they wouldn't be asking this question.

HSBC tellers keep everything in their drawers and have a separate slot for "funny money" so they will very happily exchange Scottish notes for English and it will take less than 10 seconds. If you want to deposit them it will take at least a minute.

I once observed an HSBC teller counting up her drawer at the end of the day. This was in a semi-rural part of the Midlands. I saw several Guernsey, Jersey, old Clydesdale and a Gibraltar note, and no, they weren't deposited by me!

Lloyds needs to put notes in a machine. I don't know if the machine recognises Scottish notes, in which case they need to go to the back office.

I've never stepped in a Natwest so can't comment.

As for ex-building societies like Halifax and Santander, they won't even let you deposit a 1p coin into your account. I never heard someone whine so much about so little as a Santander branch manager who had to be called by the cashier when I wanted to deposit £401, made up of 20x20 and a single pound - he kept going on and on about what a big favour he was doing me by accepting a loose coin.

chris19992

Trying to spend Scottish money anywhere outside of Scotland is a nightmare sometimes.
I know this thread is about London but just wanted to add my experience of trying to change Scottish notes to PHP within the Philippines.
£1 English GBP = 70PHP
£1 Scottish GBP = 55PHP

Was my first time there and could not believe that when I saw it, just lucky I only had £100 of notes on me to change.

Clint Bint

Useful practice for the day Scotland adopts the euro as its national currency.

mad_rich

To be fair, it's probably a pain in the arse for a B de C in the Philippines to get rid of funny money - it's not worth the hassle.

OP - you shouldn't have too much trouble spending Scottish notes in London, but do have some English notes for when the argument is not worth it. A kindly bank will probably swap them if you ask nicely - even if you're not a customer - but be prepared for them not to. You may have to try a couple of different banks.

Whatever you do, don't be fooled into letting a Bureau de Change change them for a fee, as has befallen some tourists before. There's absolutely no need to do that.

Efrem

I wouldn't go quite that far. Outside the UK, perhaps - I've never tried - but within the UK outside Scotland most large places recognize them and any bank will exchange them at no cost.

lkar

Thanks. I think what I'll do is ask my hotel to change a few of them, and then I'll have some English notes in the event that the Scottish notes aren't accepted. Kind of bummed I'll have to wait in line at the Heathrow tube station since the Scottish notes apparently won't work in the Oyster machines, unless I can get my supposed chip/pin card to work in the machine -- I had trouble last time and the line was very long.

stut

Bear in mind that if you have a contactless credit/debit card, then you don't need an Oyster card - just touch it on the barriers and go.

HIDDY

I've never not had them accepted in England and London especially has never been a problem.
Once during an end to end cycling trip I stopped off in a back of beyond place in Somerset and went into the village shop where the owners hummed and hawed a bit before accepting the Scottish tenner. They'd probably never met a Scotsman never mind Scottish money.