Do banks have to accept change?

juno-eclipse

Just been having a discussion with my partner, i needed to pay some money into my account so buy something of the internet with my card, and i emptied the change in my pocket and a few jars and the bank refused to accept the change, and he said by law they have to accept it whether its baged up in pounds or not, so just wondering is this true?

Thanks alot.

agsnu

No, it's not true.

jonesMUFCforever

No they do not. Each bank will have its own rules but change must be bagged and counted before you appear at the counter.
If you don't do this how would you feel if you were the next customer having to queue because of you?

If you don't want to count it why collect it?
Find a coin counter - but they will take a cut out of your money.

Extant

Banks aren't obliged to accept anything they don't want to.

If you went to the Bank of England, then yes, they would be obliged to accept your money. A high street bank, though? No.

So_Sad_Angel

Unless you take it in ready bagged in the correct denominations of course....with the paying in slip all correctly completed etc etc

....just to save the cashier any unecessary work!!....in my day as a cashier we had to count the money by hand! ...but then counter terminals/electronic scales had`nt been invented either!:D

Inactive

BarclaysManager wrote: »

Banks aren't obliged to accept anything they don't want to.

Not quite true BM, the banks have all been forced to accept quite a lot of " change " just recently.:D

Extant

Inactive wrote: »

Not quite true BM, the banks have all been forced to accept quite a lot of " change " just recently.:D

(Insert contextually irrelevant retort here.)

PinkPig

Exactly as people have said, there's no legal obligation for them to accept change. If you want to pay in change your options are:

1) Find a coin counting machine - these are often found in supermarkets where they take a cut of the money (I think 7% of so), and also apparently in some branches of HSBC where they don't charge.

2) Ask the bank for some money bags and count it out properly yourself. You have to pay in a complete bag of the same type of coin - the amount that makes up a complete bag is shown on the side of the bag. It's £1 for 1p or 2p, £5 for 10p or 5p, £10 for 50p or 20p and £20 for £1 or £2. You can then fill in a paying in slip as you would for any other deposit.

Although there are some things that banks do that do irritate me I don't think it's particularly unreasonable not to accept money in jam jars - counting it really would take forever, hold up the queue and annoy other customers. When you're paying in complete bags they don't count anything - they just weigh the bags.

NBE

PinkPig wrote: »

You have to pay in a complete bag of the same type of coin - the amount that makes up a complete bag is shown on the side of the bag. It's £1 for 1p or 2p, £5 for 10p or 5p, £10 for 50p or 20p and £20 for £1 or £2.

That's not true, you don't have to have a completely full bag to pay it in, just as long as its not overfull and there is no mixed coin. I regularly pay in bags of change with less than the maximum in.

kelloggs36

But they don't accept lots of the full bags either - many banks have a limit of no more than 5 at a time!

ShelfStacker_3

As BM said, banks don't have to accept anything they don't particularly want to. We'll accept any amount of anything within reason so long as it's being paid into an account or you're a customer.

It's mainly Halifax, Alliance and Leicester and the other ex-building societies who won't accept bagged coin, and Nationwide apparently won't accept random odd pieces of coin. Lesson to be learned: If you want a bank, use a real one.