To not understand why English businesses won't accept Northern Irish banknotes

[bunsaremybesties]

I am from Northern Ireland, legally a part of the UK that uses sterling. I am currently on holiday in England. In a shop yesterday there were signs displayed saying "we cannot accept Scottish or Irish notes".

My problems with this are:
(a) the use of the phrase Irish notes - personally I don't really have a strong preference for calling myself either British or Irish, but to my ears, "Irish notes", due to the current real-life currencies used on the island of Ireland, would be euro notes, used in the Republic of Ireland. So of course a shop in England would not accept these, just as it would not accept American notes or Mexican notes. I would have thought Northern Irish notes would have been a more accurate description, as Northern Ireland uses the same currency as England.

(b) what is the reasoning for not accepting "Irish"/Northern Irish banknotes, when they're exactly the same currency as those used in England, Wales and Scotland? While in Northern Ireland we do print our own banknotes, we also regularly use and accept banknotes issued in other regions of the UK. I work in a shop and within any hour block at work, I deal with any number of notes from customers that were issued by the Bank of England, Clydesdale Bank, Bank of Scotland etc. The notes have exactly the same value as those issued by Northern Irish banks like Ulster Bank or Danske Bank, so why on earth wouldn't we accept them? It's not even a consideration in our minds to refuse them. Why is it different in England?

(c) if the justification is that Northern Irish notes are not "legal tender" in England, well then everyone who lives in Northern Ireland is in trouble because in Scotland and Northern Ireland no notes, not even ones issued in those countries, are "legal tender". They are, however, legal currency and so are perfectly acceptable to be used for trade.

Can anyone explain please?

I work in a supermarket in Wales and we accept all sterling notes, including Scottish and Northern Irish. We're shown the notes as part of our training (which will be the case for all our stores in the UK), so people saying we just don't know what they look like - well that's just not true for cashiers in larger companies.

Former retail & hospitality manager here : The reasons why English businesses are reluctant to accept Scottish & NI banknotes are lack of familiarity, ignorance and fear.

Unfamiliarity : Retail & hospitality workers don’t see these notes frequently, so they don’t recognise them or know what to look for. They will also be concerned about the notes being fraudulent.

Ignorance : These workers, and their managers, are not experts on currencies, devolution within the U.K or the political situation on the island of Ireland. They may not fully understand that Scotland & NI are parts of the U.K., just like England & use £ but with different bank notes. Or that ROI is a is a foreign country which uses €, just like France. It isn’t just retail workers who don’t understand these things, of course…

Fear : Because of the factors explained above, they don’t want to make mistakes & get into trouble with their bosses so the safest course of action is to refuse to accept the notes.

Places don’t accept euros either, so it’s the same, not used in mainland UK . Does NI accept the £ ? Don’t know what the issue is, you know they are no accepted so do what any normal person does and get ££ from a money exchange place!

I just asked my daughter who has worked in a retail shop with mainly small transactions (so handles a lot of cash). She's only been presented with one Scottish note in the five years she's been there, and never with a NI note.

This shows how rare they are in London; you can't blame a shop assistant for turning them down, simply because they wouldn't know how to identify it was real or not. Even if you'd seen pictures, you wouldn't know if it was "right".

I thought I heard that all the banks in NI get to make their own notes, which makes them even harder than Scottish notes to verify.

Of course they are🙄

Yes, but Scottish banks do the same. There are notes issued by the Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank.

They are different but similar - so all £5 notes are blue, £10 notes are brown, £20 are purple just as they are elsewhere in the UK.

Shockingly, I didn’t know NI had its own notes and that people still used actual cash.

God, I do hope this is sarcasm.

I took out Scottish notes to go to Turkey on holiday last week and they would only accept English. Really annoying.

I’ll accept notes printed by the Bank of England. Not other commercial Mickey Mouse banks I’ve not heard of printing their own cash.

That would have helped a lot after Brexit if they were using Euros in NI 😆

Scottish here - I was once told that it's because it's costs the business money to bank it in an English bank.
It costs the bank money to return it to Scotland & they pass the costs on to the business, therefore eating into their profits.

I work in retail. I see a few Scottish notes a year. I haven’t seen a NI one for ages. When paper £50 English notes were about, I stopped my store accepting them. Too many fakes. The English plasticky ones are easier. Not much cash generally these days though. Probably take more cash from tourists (I’m in a tourist seaside location) particularly young ones who have pocket money.

Bet you voted for Brexit

I see this as a solved problem now we can pay for anything without cash tbh. I'm in Scotland and remember the hassle of having to track down English notes because it was easier when going to England, but that was many years ago. Now I just pay by card. Simple.

🥲

They've made a business decision, probably because they're less used to handling notes from other parts of the UK so less likely to spot a fake. Which is exactly why forgers use those notes. They probably got caught one too many times.

I regularly travel to England my Scottish bank notes have never been declined even in small shops.

I live in Wales and regularly holiday in Scotland. My local Morrisons has no issue about accepting Scottish banknotes.

Bloody hell @BodegaSushi and @DonnaBanana I’m doing my best to say here - and believe - that England isn’t full of thick bigots. And then you come along to disprove me 🙄

Why did you tag me? I'm laughing at the post I quoted because it's so ridiculous

Apologies @BodegaSushi i was rushing and saw your name at the top of the post but failed to notice you were deriding it. I actually meant @Throwncrumbs sorry.

I really hope they're joking

Your asking if NI accept the pound?

That's a funny joke.

Right?