Best ways to exchange coins at a bank.

[Deleted User]

Why don't you just spend it as you get it? Are you one of those in the pub who orders every drink with a £10 note as to not appear "poor" while counting out change?

I never get my head round that.

IanManc

Stand-and-deliver_2 said:

Thanks very much for all your input, there’s some good information there. Sadly Jimjames  although I won’t dismiss your suggestion out of hand, I’ll shuffle it to the bottom of the pack 😁 The idea of collecting all this change throughout the year is to give me extra spending power at Christmas. I think it may take until next Christmas to spend all this change on my weekly shop. 😂

First port of call will be to see if my branch of NatWest does indeed have a change counting machine. 😉

Thanks again everyone.

But you haven't got and extra spending power at Christmas. Your total income and your total expenditure are completely unchanged.

You could just make weekly or monthly contributions to a savings account if you wanted to build a lump sum for Christmas, and maybe got a bit of interest on that too, especially if you used a regular savings account. What you've done instead is amassed a lot of coins and given yourself the unnecessary problem of dealing with them. 

[Deleted User]

molerat said:

I still can't believe that coin counting machines are not the norm in banks.  When I was in Germany in the 1980s all bank branches had them although not for customer use, you just handed a bag of coins over the counter and the assistant put them into the hopper then got on with serving other customers until the machine pinged. The machine even wrapped the coins into paper rolls - no plastic bags as in UK.  But they were ahead of us in many ways, household recycling bins, domestic battery recycling points in shops - Yes the 1980s !

England is one of the least productive countries in Europe due to low capital investment plus Germany has traditionally been more cash focussed too. 

pramsay13

If it's counted and bagged nearly all bank branches will accept it and pay it into your own account. 
They don't need to have a coin machine, they just weigh the bags. 

pokora

Depending where you live you better checking at the branches. Business and over-the-counter at the banks apply a limit tothe amount of coins they handle per customer, others have machines to count and some have scales if you bag each type.

Sandtree

MetroBank have fee free ones in their branches that can be used by customers and non-customers... no idea if there is any daily limits on these things or not but then ours is normally limited to very occasional trips to get rid of coppers and so £50 tops sort of value after a few years.

molerat said:

I still can't believe that coin counting machines are not the norm in banks.  When I was in Germany in the 1980s all bank branches had them although not for customer use, you just handed a bag of coins over the counter and the assistant put them into the hopper then got on with serving other customers until the machine pinged. The machine even wrapped the coins into paper rolls - no plastic bags as in UK.  But they were ahead of us in many ways, household recycling bins, domestic battery recycling points in shops - Yes the 1980s !

Things are just different really, in the early 00s I wanted to buy a turntable from Germany as it was made there and much cheaper than in the UK and they made a really big thing that I couldnt pay cash on delivery and they had to check if they were able to accept an international credit card - they eventually decided they could but only on production of government issued photo ID and official proof of address. It all had to be done on phone and email as their website couldnt be bought from (and not one of these ultra high end companies that refuses for anything to be sold online).

UK hi-fi stores on the other hand at the time were happily selling online to international customers with straight through processing etc. Cash on delivery wasnt an option.