Published at 14:40, Friday, 04 May 2012

A drive to increase the availability of good quality £5 notes through ATMs has been successful, the Bank of England have said.

The initiative followed concerns that too few £5 notes were being dispensed through cash machines, meaning not enough were reaching people and those that did were often of poor quality.

More than 70 per cent of notes initially reach the public through ATMs and, as retailers tend to use whatever £5 notes they have as change rather than banking them, there was little opportunity for poor quality notes to be withdrawn from circulation.

Banks, building societies and ATM operators were set a target to ensure that at least 1.2 per cent of their ATM dispense by value was in £5 notes by 2012 – and this has reached 1.5 per cent.

‘Fivers’ are now available from one in eight ATMs operated by banks and building societies, following a pilot scheme with HSBC in 2009.

Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King, who raised concerns about the availability of the notes in 2007, said: “I am delighted that this initiative has been so successful.

“A key objective for the Bank is to maintain public confidence in the currency, by meeting demand with good quality genuine banknotes that the public can use with confidence.”

It has been a significant undertaking for ATM operators, who had to make physical and technical changes to their machines. Those who took part in the scheme include Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide Building Society, the Co-operative Bank, Santander, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Yorkshire Bank.

The Bank of Ireland also participated, through the Post Office, as well as Sainsbury’s Bank and HSBC.

Nearly 10 times as many £5 notes are being dispensed from ATMs than before the scheme was rolled out in the summer of 2010, equating to nearly £200m of the notes a month. By last month, more than 5,000 ATMs were dispensing the notes, compared with 670 in 2009, the Bank said.

Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk