Old chestnut I know but it’s happened again and it really pisses me off. Tried to pay with a Scots fiver in deepest Yorkshire, one of my favourite places ever, and got the knock back. According to the Association of Commercial Banknote Issuers, banknotes issued by authorised banks in Scot and NI are legal currency and can be accepted throughout the U.K. ( part 6 of currency act 2009) with all the same level of protection as Bank of England notes. As a matter of interest, no banknotes are legal TENDER in Scotland and NI including English ones. My bank here has a cash machine which issues only English notes in order to prevent any hassle, I usually do but my question is why should I have to? Maybe we should refuse English notes up here and see what happens. Anyway, rant over, over to you.
Bank of Scotland notes I’ve seen before … but I got landed with a Scottish Bank of Clydesdale note not too long back.
Was a bit of a mystery to me and I thought it was funny money until I googled it.
I took it to the bank to change it rather than have any bother. No idea if it is legal tender in the UK though it was rather a nice note.
It seems to depend on the retailer. I had a couple of Scottish notes left over and used them here in SW with no problem. I agree though, there shouldn’t be a problem using them anywhere.
In my home island there are still £1 notes, which of course aren’t acceptable in the UK. I always put mine in a charity box before leaving the island to fly back to the UK.
We have the same problem with NI notes when we go to England
Its so annoying when you are telling a shop assistant that its sterling and acceptable tender in England and they have to call a supervisor over and then the supervisor doesn’t know either and then you have to wait on the manager
They too would cop the hump it we refused English notes here
Thank heavens for debit cards
Clydesdale Bank is an authorised issuer so the note is legal currency as I say above. The question of legal tender is complicated. In your case the problem may be familiarity, which is understandable since the Clydesdale is a smaller bank. Agree, nice notes tho.
Perhaps you’ve put your finger on it, I believe retailers have the right to refuse but they have no reason to in this case.
Yup BUT it’s entirely a decision between the 2 separate parties of a transaction what banknotes they choose to accept.
That means both YOU and any retailer have the freedom to refuse any kind of banknote.
Doesn’t matter whether it is UK banknotes or Scottish banknotes.
If you walk into a local UK corner shop and buy 1 single apple and try to hand over a £50 note the retailer can happily refuse to accept it.
Similarly if I walk into a Costa coffee shop in the UK hand over a UK £10 note to pay £3 for a coffee, and the barista hands me a Scottish £5 note as part of my change, I am within my rights to refuse it and to ask for a UK £5 note.
This isn’t about “legal tender” which has a different meaning to what most think. It’s about buying and selling transactions between parties.
Whenever I visit Family down South I always make sure to get English notes from My Bank here…it saves a red mist coming over My eyes when Scottish ones are refused down there :-p
A UK banknote!? We are all part of the UK are we not? I presume you mean a Bank of England note. I know the difference between tender and currency and about buying and selling transactions. UK banknote indeed! England is not the UK my friend.
ah the great british dilemma! are we british or english or european - the mist clouds the eyes!
When my Scottish friend came down here, she used their notes without any problems too dongles. I thought they were perfectly legal and most shops don’t refuse? 
Aye,You’re right Mups.they are perfectly legal,but some checkout assistants etc’ have never seen a Scottish banknote before and it’s bloody annoying when I have to explain that to Them…and then They ring for the Manager to have it confirmed…:twisted:…I just won’t go through all that malarkey again so take English notes with Me or just use My card.
Legal or not, no shop is obliged to take Scottish banknotes, they can refuse to take them any time they like. Similarly I, as a customer, can refuse to take a Scottish banknote if a shop tries to hand me one. Same is true for UK notes.
Where in My post did I say a shop in England was OBLIGED to take Scottish bank notes?..Scottish/English/Northern Irish bank notes are ALL UK notes…Are You saying a shop in England can refuse to take English banknotes? if so,what would be Their reason for doing so?
I think everyone gets confused about acceptable tender and legal tender
Legal tender is an old term, something that is legal to clear debt
Acceptable tender is whatever is agreed by the two parties
Legally no seller has to accept any type of note or coin, no matter who made them, its as simple as that
If they decided they wanted payment in cheese straws, thats their choice
We are just so used to having two countries, a principality and a Provence with free travel about them, along with the IOM and the Channel Islands all readily accepting the Bank of England notes and coinage, we just cant accept that traders don’t have to accept the notes or coins of any bank they don’t wish to
A stamp is acceptable tender, but no trader has to accept it in payment
Yes, a shop can refuse to accept any kind of banknotes or indeed other payment methods, like for example not accepting credit cards.
If you walk into your local corner shop to buy a Twix bar and hand over a £50 note (you just don’t happen to have anything less on you) then the shop can and most likely will refuse to take it.
They could just as easily refuse to take a £20 note too.
It’s entirely up to the shop and to individual customers.
Obviously a shop that refuses to accept £20 notes might struggle to get frequent business from customers. A risk that is theirs to take. But it’s an entirely possible scenario.
£50 notes are often shunned because there are a lot of fakes out there. If the same becomes true of £20 notes and if banks don’t support businesses by exchanging fakes for real notes, then you can certainly bet that businesses would start refusing £20 notes.
I thought all scots notes were fakes??
Take heart dear Scottish person I have some English banknotes which are equally useless having been replaced by state of the art polymer banknotes.
Never fear, apparently you can go to a bank and change them for the new money. When in Rome and all that…
Actually I vaguely recall that Irish and Scottish banknotes are not legal tender anywhere in the UK they are accepted only by agreement. The only legal tender is Bank of England issued notes - or is it ‘Royal Mint’ issued?.
Coins also have limitations is the amount you can offer as I recall you could only offer pennies up to the value of 2/- over that amount it was legal to refuse them - it might have been 2/1d was the limit. Presumably something similar still applies.
BTW that is a distant memory from school days (perhaps not that long) so it might not be 100% true.