People with British banknotes put away for a rainy day will have to dig up their stash – as paper £20 and £50 notes have lost their status as money.
From now on polymer £20 and £50 notes will be the only versions accepted in shops and banks.
Those still in possession of the old notes will have to exchange them for new ones with the Bank of England in London or a specially designated post offices in the UK.
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The old notes cannot be spent in shops or used in business transactions and will not even be accepted by most banks.
And anyone trying to hide cash from the Revenue could be in trouble as the exchange of old notes will have to be received through a bank account.
It is understood there are millions of pounds worth of the old notes still in circulation in the Republic, especially in border counties.
It is also known that many people put away British banknotes as savings in the belief that sterling, like the dollar, is a better hedge against inflation.
The withdrawal of the old paper currency includes the paper £20 notes issued by Bank of Ireland (UK), AIB Group (UK), and Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland. It is understood that most of the paper £20 and £50 banknotes in circulation have been replaced with new polymer versions.
But it is believed that there are still over €6billion worth of paper £20s and nearly €6.8billion worth of paper £50 banknotes in circulation. That makes a total of more than 250 million individual £20 banknotes and more than 110 million paper £50 banknotes.
But the good news for Irish savers with British banknotes stashed away is that they will not lose their money – although they will have to come clean about how much they have.
While there is no deadline for exchanging the withdrawn paper notes because they will no longer be accepted in shops, there has been a rush to replace them across the water.
The Bank of England has warned the public to expect long queues at its headquarters at Threadneedle Street, London in the coming days.
The public with a UK bank account or Post Office account, will be able to deposit paper notes but most Irish people will not have access to this facility.
There will also be a limited number of Post Office branches in the UK and Northern Ireland that will exchange the old notes for new ones.
A spokesperson for the Bank of England said the bank does not have facilities overseas for people to return notes.
The spokesperson said: “People living in the Republic of Ireland can of course post their notes to the Bank of England, or wait until they next come to England.
“There is no time limit on returning these paper banknotes, either with us, or at participating post office branches.”
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