Sir John Houblon £50 note to be withdrawn

The Bank of England is advising people to spend, deposit or exchange any £50 banknotes featuring Sir John Houblon by the end of April.

The £50 banknote featuring the portrait of Sir John Houblon, the first governor of the Bank of England, is to be withdrawn from circulation on 30th April 2014.

After this date, only £50 banknotes depicting entrepreneur Matthew Boulton and engineer James Watt, who are regarded as pioneers of the Industrial Revolution, will be accepted as legal tender.

There are around 224 million £50 notes (worth £11.2 billion) in circulation, of which an estimated 63 million (worth £3.2 billion) are notes with Houblon’s portrait.

The Bank of England is advising people that have the Houblon £50 note to spend, deposit or exchange it before the deadline.

What happens after the deadline?

From the beginning of May retailers are unlikely to accept the Houblon £50 notes as payment.

But most banks and building societies will continue to let customers deposit the old-style £50 notes into their accounts.

However, agreeing to exchange the notes after the deadline will be at the discretion of the individual institutions.

Barclays, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank and the Post Office have all agreed to exchange Houblon £50 notes, up to the value of £200, until 30th October 2014.

But if you miss that deadline and are stuck with the old-style note you can still go to the Bank of England.

The Bank of England will continue to exchange the Houblon £50 notes after 30th April, as it does for all old notes which can no longer be used as legal tender. There is no fee for this service and banknotes of this type can be exchanged by post or in person.

Why is this happening?

Sir John Houblon was appointed as the first Governor of the Bank of England in 1694 and the £50 note celebrating him was issued in 1994 to coincide with the Bank of England’s 300th anniversary.

Its withdrawal is part of the Bank’s strategy to combat fraud by regularly changing the design of its banknotes.

The current Boulton and Watt £50 banknote was first issued on 2nd November 2011 and was the first to have a green ‘motion thread’ that has five windows featuring the pound symbol and the number 50, which moves up and down when the note is tilted from side to side.

If you need help spotting fakes take a look at this article: How to spot a fake banknote.

Future banknotes

Last month the Bank of England announced plans to issue plastic banknotes for the first time.

From 2016 a new £5 note depicting Sir Winston Churchill, made of polymer rather than cotton paper, is set to be the first to go into circulation.

Around a year later, a £10 note featuring Jane Austen is expected to follow, after a public campaign protesting about the lack of women on our banknotes (not withstanding the Queen).

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