Over the last week, Brits have been reaching down the backs of sofas and opening their old coin jars. This is because the old round £1 coin is now (as of midnight on Sunday) no longer considered legal tender.
It’s been reported that £60m worth of the round coins have been spent in the last 7 days, but there are still more than £400m in circulation.
But what can we do about those extra coins we find in our glove boxes? Or what if we were too busy feeding customers till 11pm Sunday night and still have a till full of the old coins?
Does anywhere still accept them?
Yes. Most banks will still take old £1 coins as deposits into your business or personal account, but the Royal Mint say it’s down to each individual bank whether they exchange old coins for new.RBS, NatWest, Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC, Santander, Nationwide, Ulster, Clydesdale, Yorkshire Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland will accept your old coins, although terms may vary.
Note: Businesses may need to separate old coins from new ones when trading them into the bank.
Supermarkets such as Tesco will accept the old coins for an extra week. Others will take them for two additional weeks.
Post Office, however, won’t be accepting them now the deadline has passed (unless depositing into their bank account via post office).
Advice to businesses
The Federation of Small Businesses has advised its 170,000 member businesses to accept them for a few more weeks. Why deprive yourself of a slice of that £400 million?Many people will still have the old coins despite the late surge and will be itching to spend quickly –advertising the fact you accept them may generate extra business. People will also appreciate your flexibility and customer-focused service.
Watch your change
Take care to keep hold of old coins once you receive them. Now the midnight deadline has passed, you cannot hand out the round coins to customers in their change. This may upset your patrons and sour any loyalty they have to your brand!Thinking of the customer and offering convenience will be a great way to boost profits as well as customer relations in this transitional period.
