Sir – I have an acquaintance, an Oxfordshire man, who, distrusting banks, keeps his life-savings in his house.
Finding that the Elgar £20 notes were no longer valid, he took them to a local bank where his friend has an account, and his friend changed them for him. Having already taken the money from them, £3,000, the clerk announced that there was a charge of £50, and gave them £2,950 back.
This unanticipated charge was being made for changing sterling into sterling, not sterling into a foreign currency, which they do commission-free. It is almost 1.7 per cent, charged in a single day by a former building society which is rewarding many of its older savers with a mere 0.1 per cent interest per annum (or 0.05 per cent on liquid gold accounts). My acquaintance still does not trust banks.
Roger Moreton, Oxford
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