The law ensures that if you offer to fully pay off a debt to someone in a form that is considered legal tender – and there is no contract specifying another form of payment – that person cannot sue you for failing to repay.
There are 'legal tender' £100 coins, but these are commemorative or bullion coins only, and are not considered circulating currency. In the UK, a one hundred pound coin will likely be made of gold, silver or platinum.
Whilst the £20 has been deemed legal tender it has not yet been designed to be a circulating coin. That means you can still use it to settle a debt in court, but you will probably find that your corner shop or your bank will not accept a £20 coin in exchange for goods or services.
While the paper notes are no longer legal tender, a spokeswoman said “all genuine Bank of England banknotes that have been withdrawn from circulation retain their face value. There is no expiry on the period in which we will exchange banknotes”.
💷 'Many people are confused about what legal tender means. It's actually about settling debts rather than how you can pay for things. ' Learn more about money and how the economy works by checking out our short explainers.
You might have heard someone in a shop say: 'But it's legal tender! ' Most people think this means the shop is obliged to accept the payment form. But that is not the case. A shop owner can choose what to accept.
This note replaces our paper £50 note which was withdrawn from circulation after 30 September 2022. You may be able to deposit withdrawn notes at your own bank or with the Post Office. Alternatively, you can exchange withdrawn banknotes with selected Post Office branches or with the Bank of England.
The Post Office Opens in a new window will accept most old notes as a deposit into any UK bank account you can access with them. There are also 50 Post Office branches across the UK that will swap old banknotes, even if you do not have a bank account.
Yes. A shop is under no obligation to sell you anything, nor to sell it to you at the price on the label. They can choose to refuse your note because a display of priced goods is merely an "offer to treat" - to negotiate a deal - although negotiating the price of a Mars bar downwards doesn't often work.
Issued for the first time by the Royal Mint in 2015 and sold at face value, £100 coins hold legal tender status but are intended as collectors' items and are rarely found in general circulation.
Cheques are still used in the UK but it's not always clear where to pay them in. Whether you use them often, get one now and then or have never had one before, here's how to deposit a cheque and where you can do it.
"We are no longer excepting [sic] commemorative coins i.e. £20.00 coins. Please make sure you have sufficient funds to pay for your fuel. Sorry for any inconvenience."
In fact Scottish notes are not legal tender anywhere - even in Scotland. In other words, you can't insist that they be accepted for payment. As has been mentioned, only coins satisfy this requirement (and even then only up to a limit - 20p for bronze).
It has been struck since then both as a bullion coin and, beginning in 1979, for collectors. Though the sovereign is no longer in circulation, it is still legal tender in the United Kingdom.
The banknotes we produce will always be worth their face value. Even for banknotes that no longer have legal tender status. If you look closely at any Bank of England banknote, you will notice it contains the 'promise to pay' inscription – our promise to honour the stated face value of our banknotes for all time.
The 10 Shilling Note, or 'ten bob', was a goodly sum in the old days – in the 1960's it could buy 6 pints of beer, 10 loaves of bread, or 17 pints of milk. It's hard to imagine its decimal equivalent, the 50p, buying so much these days!
When did the 10 shilling note stop being legal tender?
The series C 10/– notes ceased to be legal tender on 22 November 1970. In the Isle of Man, both the English and Manx 10/– notes continued to be legal tender for 50 pence until 2013.
We're publicly owned. We are a public body that must answer to the people of the UK through Parliament. We started over 300 years ago as a private bank with shareholders. In 1946, the Government nationalised us because of our central importance to the UK's economy.
Section 18(1) of the Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981 provides that it is an offence without prior written consent from the relevant authority for any person, to reproduce on any substance whatsoever, and whether or not on the correct scale, any British currency note or any part of a British Currency note.
When currency is deposited with a Federal Reserve Bank, the quality of each note is evaluated by sophisticated processing equipment. Notes that meet our strict quality criteria--that is, that are still in good condition--continue to circulate, while those that do not are taken out of circulation and destroyed.
Shops tend not to accept them because there are so many forgeries out there. It was the same with £20 notes a couple of decades ago when they were "rare" - lots of shops wouldn't take them. Fifties are seen so infrequently that you don't know if it is a forgery or not.
£100 notes have not been issued by the Bank of England since 1945, but they are issued by some banks in the Channel Islands, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Alan Turing's efforts during World War II helped ensure the victory of Britain and the Allies against Nazi Germany. Turing's work at Bletchley Park helped to decipher German codes, including how to find the settings for the Nazi's 'Enigma' machines.
