On 18 Apr 2007, Mike Barnes wrote

In alt.usage.english, wrote:
but to get back to the fivers I rang the BOE this afternoon
and as mentioned here the other day BOE have enough new notes
to replace every old note that is out there but they say banks
are just not asking for them and there is no way for us or BOE
to make them. What the guy at BOE did say more new notes would
get into circulation if only people would take any well worn
notes into the banks instead of just spending them in shops etc
.

It's no good blaming the customers. The banks need to put the
fivers in their cash machines.

The banks will do this only if they're forced/coerced to do so by a
regulator. Indeed, this happened with tenners a few years back
when the banks pushed their luck by loading just twenties into the
machines.

The advantages of "just twenty pound notes" were obvious:

1. More cash is held in each machine; therfore less maintenance in
recharging.

2. Adjacent shops -- newsagents, corner stores -- would be asked to
cash lots of £20 notes.

3. Said shops needed a larger cash float.

4. Businesses pay for cash from the bank; it's not a free service.

Therefore -- for the bank -- it's money from both ends. (Less
maintenance, and more income from cash floats from nearby shops.)

The banks will not, by choice, load fivers into their ATMs; they
had to be coerced into keeping tenners in there.

--
Cheers, Harvey

Canadian and British English, indiscriminately mixed