jamesn00

I'm transiting through heathrow in a few weeks and have a few old £5 notes and £1 coins? Does anyone know if there is anywhere to exchange these in T5?

Mwenenzi

An old thread on this topic:- Old Bank of England notes

I also have some old notes to change when next in UK

Barcky

I don't recall seeing any banking facilities in T5. One might inquire at the Travelex currency exchange. A few years ago I had to exchange some older notes in person at the Bank of England. No retailer would accept them and no bank would exchange them as a courtesy since I didn't have a banking relationship with them.

MoreMilesPlease

If you can't change them into new notes then consider tossing them in the charity bowl. I am sure they will find a way to get them into usable money.

UKtravelbear

They can only be changed at banks as they are no longer legal tender and the transition period has expired

check the Bank of England’s website as some very old notes Can only be exchanged by them but later but out of circulation notes by normal bank branches.

:D!

Old £1 coins cannot be exchanged any more but only deposited into bank accounts. They can also be sold to coin dealers or any member of the public who is willing to buy them from you. Fourex machines will buy old £1 coins for 92.6p each.

Old £5 notes can be exchanged at commercial banks or the Bank of England. Without an account, only HSBC, Natwest and Barclays will generally do it but some bank staff will bend the rules, or just not bother with non-customers when they are busy. Travelex is not meant to do it at all unless you are actually conducting a transaction, but during the transition period where two series of notes were circulating, most staff would not mind helping out.

Commercial banks can exchange whatever they like, it's only that the older the note, the less likely they will be able to ascertain its authenticity. If an old note has a higher numismatic than face value, some wily bank staff may swap it for their own money, or keep them for friendly banknote dealers.

mad_rich

Thanks for this. I wasn't aware of these machines. I have a couple of big bags of Euro coins that I've been meaning to take on holiday if I could only locate a Coinstar type machine in France or Spain. This'll do nicely, and will take all the other assorted shrapnel I've got too.

Today's GBP/ EUR rate is 1.108 for notes and 1.271 for coins which is a fair enough price for accepting a bucketload of foreign coins.

mad_rich

I was passing through King's Cross yesterday, so paid a visit to the Fourex machine. Very easy to use. It rejected quite a lot of coins, so I had to feed the rejects back through several times and still it inexplicably refused to take a handful of EUR coppers and CHF 2 pieces, but all in all pretty painless. There were a few Fourex employees hanging around helping customers (it was quite busy, with both machines in use when I arrived, and people queuing behind me) - one guy said that CHF 2 pieces are a known issue.

The rate is obviously not outstanding, but I think it's actually very fair for handling all that obscure, low denomination change. I took the option of a payout in EUR cash. As well as Sterling I think they offer USD.

As you can see, they paid

EUR 0.85 for EUR coins (so a 15% commission, probably twice what you'd pay at a Coinstar type machine, if you could find a EUR one on holiday somewhere)
EUR 0.58 for CHF coins (vs 0.86 mid-market rate yesterday)
EUR 0.76 for CHF notes (vs 0.86 mid-market rate yesterday)

:D!

The Swiss 2 francs is hardly low denomination!

They have always paid a poor rate for Swiss francs especially considering that CHF is probably the easiest currency in the world for exchanging coins to notes. Unlimited amounts of coins are readily exchangeable at any Swiss post office for no commission or fees, and Switzerland is not very far from the UK.

They charged you the same percentage commission for that huge Australian 50c which needs to go halfway round the world.... and apparently you had an Australian 2 cents, which even Australian commercial banks just chuck into the bin rather than returning to the Reserve Bank (if you only have one coin, they will just give you the 2 cents into your account though )


The Belgian, German, Lithuanian and Portguese central banks will exchange reasonable amounts of euro coins commission-free. Cafes in Spain will happily take them off you too...


The reason the rates are not that great now, is because from September to October 2017, somebody screwed up with the programming and they were taken for a ride by multiple coin dealers from all over the UK. They were paying €0.97 for €1 of 1c coins, and $0.83 for $1 of American pennies, certainly not enough to even break even after repatriating them. They were also paying out for worthless Belgian / French franc coins, Cypriot pound coins and Dutch guilder coins, which ceased to be exchangeable years ago.

mad_rich

Yes, that's a good point. 2CHF was probably the highest denomination coin I fed it. Perhaps they did me a favour by rejecting them! I'll see if I can ski over to CH on my next ski trip.

The rest of the coins were largely low value. I certainly picked out the €0.50 and above.

Still, I think the commission is fair. The chance to get rid of all that in one go is useful. Commission at 3% for coppers it would be a steal!

I would have expected a bit more fort the 10CHF note, but for that amount I'm not going to go traipsing around

stimpy

I just found out about the 10 pound notes and I have a bunch in my bag. It says online that you can change at banks and post offices. And there is a post office in T3. Has anyone successfully changed old notes at the post office at T3?

:D!

Officially post offices will only accept them for deposit into UK bank accounts. It has been more than 6 weeks since paper £10 notes lost legal tender status so I don't think that is going to work.

stimpy

Oh well. It does say online that the Bank of England is legally required to change these notes at anytime so I guess I'll have to wait til the next time I'm in central London.

rwm818

I was just in London - and was able to exchange at a bank.
I heard that the 20£ is next to be changed out?

:D!

Yes, many commercial banks will still do the exchange for non-customers, but there are no banks in LHR.

There appears to be a Barclays at Hatton Cross which is accessible by free buses from all terminals.

The £20 note will be replaced by a polymer version in 2020.

The BOE says there are "no plans" for a polymer £50, and the Treasury recently launched a consultation regarding scrapping £50 notes (although they shelved plans in the same consultation to scrap 1p and 2p coins due to some disingenuous MPs and media outlets making an outcry).

However, the £50 note was only recently changed in 2011-14 (the dual-circulation period lasted for 2½ years), and based on recent patterns it is not due for a redesign until a few years either side of 2030.