Should the BOE issue a £100 note?

[dowie]

Just had a look on the inflation calculator and £100 today is basically worth the same as £50 back in 1995, so a £50 note today is closer to the £20 notes back then... the old trope of shops being suspicious of £50 notes has got to be rather outdated soon too, especially with the modern notes that are more resistant to forgeries.

The £50 note (at least post gold standard one) was introduced in 1981 was worth the equivalent of circa £185 today so arguably perhaps we ought to even have a £200 note by now!

So surely we ought to have £100 notes though? They have them in Scotland and Northern Ireland just not BOE ones for England and Wales. Is it perhaps that the proliferation of card machines -> notes not used as much - >not really fussed about higher denominations?

It used to be the case that notes were still the correct ettiquet in some bars, when you had to swipe and sign or use chip and pin (I was in a member's club in the 00s where you'd be making a faux pas by using a card at the bar, they had a card machine but it was slow and you were holding everyone else up by asking for it so cash was the default) but I guess these days contactless is the more efficient way.

Would be nice to have a new note though right? Right???

 

[dowie]

Where I live most shops still won't take a £50 note, so there'd be no chance with a £100.

That's because they're dumb/don't seem to understand inflation or polymer notes.

£20 notes weren't exactly rare to use in the late 90s, I had some as a teenager but that's what £50 notes are basically now.

 

[dowie]

Some replies are focused on people not using notes anymore or only using them for small transactions of a few £... that's somewhat insular, they're clearly still used by some people (lack of use is more a reason to not print as many notes and not a good argument for not having a larger denomination note), that you personally can't envisage situaitons other than your own is moot. As for small transacitons of a few £s at most, why bother with £50, £20 or £10 notes in that case... just have coins and £5 notes right? But again that's not true for all and is more a reason to not print as many notes in general rather than not accounting for inflation.

Scotland and NI have £100 notes, the US has $100 bills and has done for many years (inc when it exceeded the worth of £100 today), the Eurozone not only has a €100 note but also €200 and €500 notes too.

Our money is worth a lot less than it was a decade or two ago but the notes issued by the BOE simply haven't kept up, aside from the £1 note being phased out we have the same range of notes as we did in 1981 but all of those notes are now worth substantially less.

On a related note... I'd also be in favour of phasing out 1p and 2p coins... the 1/2p coins went but now 1p and 2p is worth so little that it's pointless to have them, make retail price things in multiples of 5p.

I'd have preferred to see the £50 being more commonly used. It's stupid that people are suspicious of it and it feels like a novelty to hold one for the first time.

The €50 note is just as common as any other notes.

Most of it's naivety or hangovers from the 1990s and indeed pre-polymer notes. Given the price of a pint or even a bottle in London these days then paying for a round with a few friends can easily involve multiple notes if paying cash... it's less of an issue these days as the contactless limit has increased to £100, pre pandemic the contactless limit was only £30 so notes were more convenient. In some places they still are really as there's maybe some naff card machine that takes ages or one between a few bar staff etc..

The £50 essentially is the old £20 these days which lots of people still aren't quite used to.

 

[dowie]

I don't think we should have a £100 note yet, but the £50 should be more legitimised / accepted by shops and bronze money 1p and 2p should be scrapped.

This is what I propose:

The bronze coins should be single-digit values - 5p
The silver coins should be double-digit values - 10p, 20p and 50p (so the same as now)
The gold coins should be triple-digit values - £1, £2 and £5 (so no more £5 note)
The notes should be quad-digit values - £10, £20 and £50

Why a £5 coin though? That seems pointless given we have polymer notes now. There are £5 coins already but just for collection purposes* and they're expensive to make, notes are cheaper and the polymer ones last longer, if anything perhaps £1 and £2 notes might be worthwhile too.

*or at least intended for that, no reason why you can't spend them though if you wanted to

 

[dowie]

I suppose if you're looking to plug a problem that no one actually has you may as well print 1 pound notes (again, having stopped doing so years ago), a new 2 pound note, a new 100 pound note, and maybe a new 500 pound note because why not?

You could say the same about the post I was replying to - why a £5 coin instead of a note? Except the note makes more sense as it's cheaper!

 

[dowie]

Separately, are there any awkward side effects of abolishing 1p and 2p? All transactions a multiple of 5p? That to would make sense to me.

I think it makes plenty of sense for retail at least. Granted you'd perhaps still want utility prices to be more granular in terms of price per KWh but that's not really a barrier, they're usually paid electronically or even if in cash at the postoffice you could overpay by up to 4p without drama. Likewise you maybe want bank statements to still be to the nearest 1p but it's not an issue to have it to multiples of 5p... the interest behind the scenes is a bit messier anyway with fractions of pennies as it is.

 

[dowie]

Hold up, do hookers now take card or bacs?
Asking for a friend....

I believe that's mostly a cash business, along with ladies who dance in certain types of clubs for gentlemen. Of course I'm sure it's possible to pay by card for such things (no doubt they love to see a drunk customer resort to his credit/debit card) it's just generally not advised for a few reasons* and might well lead to an awkward phonecall from the fraud department at your bank the next day too.


*one reason being this sort of thing:

Strip club shut after claims customers’ drinks were spiked and six figures stolen

Customers at Vanity Bar and Nightclub in London’s Soho claimed they blacked out and woke up to find their bank accounts raided

www.independent.co.uk

A Soho strip club has been shut down for three months after allegations were made of at least 10 customers having £250,000 stolen from their accounts when their drinks were spiked.
A string of punters at the Vanity Bar and Nightclub in London’s West End claimed they blacked out and woke to find their finances had been raided.
One man even said he had £98,000 taken in a series of fraudulent transactions when his drink was spiked.

 

[dowie]

Or just having more fivers around. A lot of cash machines don't dispense them any more.

Personally I'd look at phasing out coins under 5p. Sweden has made it work, they have nothing under 1kr now (which is the equivalent of about 8p). Heck even 30 years ago the smallest was 0.5kr (~4p). What confused me a bit was they still had prices in supermarkets with smaller denominations but you didn't get change, it was just rounded up.

Phasing out 1 and 2p coins makes a lot of sense as mentioned earlier in the thread too - Australia and New Zealand have done it too apparently.

I don't really get the £5 coin, having some more fivers as you say might be handy. AFAIK the issue with notes vs coins was notes get worn and need to be replaced but now we've got polymer notes the economics have perhaps changed a bit. The £2 coin was introduced just over 25 years ago but perhaps a £2 note might make sense or even £1 notes (we used to have them) as with the new polymer material, it might be the case that they're more economical than a coin.

The £5 coin is basically what used to be a "Crown" and is quite a hefty coin, bigger than the £2. You can get them from the Royal Mint as part of commemorative releases and they are legal tender but I don't think they'd be particularly useful vs notes in general circulation.

 

[dowie]

Cash is just not commonly used these days especially with the new millennials and things all going digital.
The 5, 10, and 20 is plenty for most of the population?

That's more an argument to not need to print as many of the various denominations in general, there are £50s of course still and as pointed out earlier they're more like the £20 note from a couple of decades ago in terms of value now.

 

[dowie]

What we need is a million pound banknote for the gucci belters, corner sofa-ists and dons to wave around.

No need to stop at 1 million, how about 350 million?