What you can and can’t do with all those old coins

It is all change for the pound coin as the round pound loses its legal tender status after this weekend. So how can you offload your old coins and where can you do it? When does the round £1 coin cease to be legal tender? The £1 coin remains legal tender until midnight tomorrow. After then, businesses can stop accepting it and they will not be able to give it to you as change. Does that mean I will not be able to spend my round pounds after this date? This could depend on where you shop. Some stores, such as Iceland, Tesco and Poundland, plan to continue accepting round pounds for a short period of days afterwards.

If you do not want to risk being caught out, though, bear in mind that shops are not obliged to accept your old round pound after tomorrow, so it would be wise to offload your old coins by banking, spending or giving them to charity before then. What about banks? Several major banks and building societies have said their own customers can continue to deposit the old round pounds with them after October 15.

The Post Office is another place where you can take your old round pounds after this date. People will still be able to deposit the old coins into any of their usual high street bank accounts through the Post Office. What about machines that take coins? The British Parking Association says it is “confident the majority of parking machines are ready or will be ready to accept the new £1 coin”.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Hart, chief executive of the Automatic Vending Association (AVA), said: “We believe that all machines owned by AVA members (around 380,000) are now accepting the new £1 coin.”

Picture: PA. Poundland is one of the stores that will still accept the old round £1 coin.