Dubai: «The Gulf»
Banks operating in the UAE have advised customers to replace their old 20 and 50 pound notes with the new ones, before the deadline set by the Bank of England for the validity of using old banknotes of these two denominations, which is September 30, 2022.
According to the Bank of England circular, after September 30, the 20 and 50 pound notes will no longer be valid for transactions according to the law in Britain and around the world, and it encouraged anyone who still has these two denominations to exchange them or deposit them in the bank ahead of time. After September 30, people will have to exchange old banknotes at the Bank of England headquarters or just by mail.
The new 50-pound note bears the drawing of mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing, while the 20-pound note is adorned with the artist George Malllord William Turner.
Thus, the United Kingdom and the world bid farewell to traditional paper currencies entirely, after they had previously been replaced by denominations of 5 and 10 sterling with polymer paper, which has multiple advantages, the most important of which is that it makes counterfeiting currencies more difficult, as well as the possibility of recycling and gives the coins more time before damage.
While the majority of the 20 and 50 pound notes have been replaced by the new polymer issues, there is still more than 6 billion pounds of 20 pound notes drawn by economist Adam Smith, and more than 8 billion pounds of 50 pound notes that are being sold in the UK. The drawing of engineers, Bolton and Watt, is now in circulation, according to the last statistic of the Bank of England in July. This means more than 300 million papers of 20 pounds, and 160 million papers of 50 pounds.
The withdrawal of the 20-pound banknote began on February 20, 2020, when the new paper entered circulation, while the withdrawal of the 50-pound banknote began on June 23, 2021, when the new polymer paper entered circulation.
It is noteworthy that the withdrawal of banknotes of the two categories mentioned includes those issued by the Bank of Ireland and other approved banks in the United Kingdom, and not only those issued by the Bank of England, with the same date of September 30, 2022 as a deadline.