Neil Williams wrote:

Banks vary quite a bit on this. When I first got a current account in 1992
one of the considerations was the ability to pay in loose coins. Even then
some banks wouldn't take them out of hours. Now even my bank is switching
its payin machines from "deposit an envelope" to "feed in the notes and
cheques" with no cash option.

Go to the counter?

That is an option, although one that is never popular at the counter, but
most of the time when I'm able to go to the bank the queue is either
ridiculous long or it's out of hours. Not everyone works in a way that fits
in with the opening hours.

With a bit of effort, it's easy to minimise the amount of it you
produce by taking the time (it doesn't take that long!) to pay with
exact change when you have it.

It depends a lot on what your cash transactions are. Mine are primarily
small purchases at the supermarket, newspapers, fast-food or the bar. With
the exception of papers these aren't circumstances and amounts that are
terribly favourable to faffing about with getting the exact coinage for the
amount involved. And on top of everything else my wallet is ridiculously
large with the number of cards I have to carry in it and carrying the loose
change makes it worse.

And of course most vending machines (on a side note to come back on topic
does anyone know why all the chocolate machines on tube platforms have
gone?) don't take coppers.

On another note, though, I would like to see the abolition of the 1p
and 2p coins as the Dutch have done with the 1 and 2 euro-cent coins.
There is hardly a need for them these days.

It would solve a lot of the problems but you'd need to do something about
the price levels. Rounding the prices up for paying by cash would be heavily
unpopular and would disproportionately hit particular groups in society.