Sterling Up North(and on the mainland)

Coat22

Tripping up north over the weekend and have a trip to Enlgand in a few weeks time.

Do they still have this ridiculous rule where they won't accept sterling from Northern Ireland banks in England and vice versa?

Richard

NI shops will always accept Bank of England notes (some cashpoints there actually dispense them) and usually Scottish ones.

Many shops in England will take NI notes, but small shops and pubs are less likely as they won't know what they are supposed to look like.

If you're really stuck, Tesco self service machines in England will take NI notes.

jimmii

Was that ever a rule? I had trouble one time with a Scottish note but it was some kid who had just started and hadn't seen anything but bank of England before. Was down last week and no one even took a second look at my Scottish notes so guessing you won't have any problems with NI notes.

xabi

Best to swap any NI notes you have to English notes, saves any hassle trying to explain that they are legal tender. Any bank here or there will swap them, last time I was in England I used the bureau de change in the airport to swap NI notes for ones with the Queens face on.

jimmii

Post Office will do it for you too. There was a lady changing Scottish notes for English notes as she was going to Jersey and places there would be awkward about taking them.

mansize

Best to use Bank of England notes.

jimmii

mansize wrote: »

Her face is on ALL notes, turn them over...

I have a wallet full of sterling with no Queen on.

mansize

My bad. I only use Bank of England notes.

I always have sterling ( home is beside the border) I was in London last year & NO ONE would take the nordy sterling.
Banks wouldn't take it if I didn't have an account, the post office had no idea what it was! I had to buy stuff in the post office for them to take it.
Ridiculous.
But in future, I'll just change it before I go.

jimmii

Definitely depends on who you get bit strange about the post office and banks though.

mansize

Nordy sterling always has a bad rep on the mainland- I think they all think it's laundered

stimpson

Scottish and Northern Irish banks notes are not legal tender anywhere - including in Scotland and Northern Ireland. This is why some retailers in England are reluctant to take them. It's perfectly legal to pay with them, but the retailer is not obliged to accept them.

mansize

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/12/can-i-spend-scottish-money-england

Legal currency but not legal tender

jimmii

In most transactions bank of England notes are also not legal tender in strictest terms! It's legal currency approved by the UK government it's only really lack of recognition that leads to people not accepting them which is fair enough as if you don't have any idea what the legit note looks like and feels like it's going to be very hard to spot a fake.

mansize

Seriously OP avoid NI Notes

jimmii

mansize wrote: »

Seriously OP avoid NI Notes

Basically this /thread.

razorblunt

Yeah, you may as well try to pay with monopoly money in England as with NI notes.

Get the odd hassle with Scottish notes, but I generally just ask the BdC to change them in the airport before I leave.
NatWest ATMs only dish out English notes too as fair as I know, so might be handy if you're withdrawing from an ATM up there.

Coat22

Well back from NI and avoided using cash as best I could. Think I might have an NI tenner but that's about it.

Friend of mine from Newcastle insists he'd never accept Scottish notes as there's always problems having them accepted in England so I followed the same logic with NI notes.

Absolutely bizarre that in 2016 they have this issue.

jimmii

It is pretty ridiculous alright. Once you're outside of a city then you would definitely want to have some back up surprised at Newcastle being an issue though I've been a few times and no one has had a problem with it I didn't venture outside of the city centre though.