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Foreign exchanges giving worse exchange rate is better than the situation I've had many times in england, were I was simply unable to pay with or exchange north

by loopbit 10y ago

Foreign exchanges giving worse exchange rate is better than the situation I've had many times in england, were I was simply unable to pay with or exchange northern irish or scottish pounds. Someone told me that, by law, they have to accept those notes, but I still have ~40 NI pounds that I took to london on a trip a couple of years ago and had to take back with me.

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doc_holliday 10y ago
By law they have to do no such thing. It's a a very tender point with people because people get weirdly patriotic regarding Scottish Pound Notes. But they are a sort of bizzare currency. Scottish notes are a legal currency, but not a legal tender. In fact there is no such thing as legal tender in Scotland. Even BoE notes are not legal tender in Scotland. Legal tender only means you can legally pay down debts by court order in the given currency. BoE notes fulfill this job, but only in England & Wales. "Someone told me that, by law, they have to accept those notes" No, they don't even have to by law accept BoE notes in England. Only for paying down debts by law is that true. Any shop or whatever can refuse or accept anything you give them. However, to add further confusion, every single pound of Scottish notes is backed up by BoE pound sterling. In the banks that print Scottish notes (Clydedale, RBS, Bank of Scotland) they have to keep an equal ammount of BoE Sterling. They even created special notes so they could hold the currency in their vaults in Banks. You can get £1,000,000 and £100,000,000 notes called Giants and Titans, which back up the Scottish and NI pound notes. What you are legally entitled to do however (I think?) is go into any branch of Bank you have a Scottish note of and request the equal in BoE note. So if you have £20 RBS Scottish note, you can go in to an RBS branch legally and claim your BoE note with a nice picture of Adam Smith on it :)
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by loopbit 10y ago

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doc_holliday 10y ago

By law they have to do no such thing. It's a a very tender point with people because people get weirdly patriotic regarding Scottish Pound Notes. But they are a sort of bizzare currency. Scottish notes are a legal currency, but not a legal tender. In fact there is no such thing as legal tender in Scotland. Even BoE notes are not legal tender in Scotland. Legal tender only means you can legally pay down debts by court order in the given currency. BoE notes fulfill this job, but only in England & Wales. "Someone told me that, by law, they have to accept those notes" No, they don't even have to by law accept BoE notes in England. Only for paying down debts by law is that true. Any shop or whatever can refuse or accept anything you give them. However, to add further confusion, every single pound of Scottish notes is backed up by BoE pound sterling. In the banks that print Scottish notes (Clydedale, RBS, Bank of Scotland) they have to keep an equal ammount of BoE Sterling. They even created special notes so they could hold the currency in their vaults in Banks. You can get £1,000,000 and £100,000,000 notes called Giants and Titans, which back up the Scottish and NI pound notes. What you are legally entitled to do however (I think?) is go into any branch of Bank you have a Scottish note of and request the equal in BoE note. So if you have £20 RBS Scottish note, you can go in to an RBS branch legally and claim your BoE note with a nice picture of Adam Smith on it :)

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