Some stores will still take old £10 notes

SOME major retailers are to defy Bank of England orders and accept the old £10 note, possibly for weeks.

Aldi, Morrisons and Iceland extended yesterday’s cut-off for the notes. But Tesco and Sainsbury’s said they had stuck to the deadline.

Shops continued to hand out the old Charles Darwin notes right up to the Mar 1 deadline because the Bank of England did not issue guidance against doing so.

According to the Bank’s latest estimates, about 200 million notes remained in circulation in the lead-up to the deadline.

The Bank said it did not expect all notes to be returned as some will have been destroyed, gone overseas or been kept as souvenirs.

The Iceland chain is extending the deadline for spending old £10 notes by a month to Apr 2. A spokesman said it had taken the decision to “help its customers” by letting them spend old notes in their stores rather than having to go to a bank.

Aldi will accept the old £10 notes until Mar 30, while Morrisons shoppers have until Mar 16.

When the old pound coin was phased out last year many shops agreed to accept them beyond the deadline. Small shops are also likely to accept old £10 notes beyond the deadline, experts said.

The Federation of Small Businesses, the trade body representing them, called on banks to accept notes from businesses and consumers to help get them out of circulation quickly.

New polymer notes featuring Jane Austen were introduced to reduce the risk of counterfeits. Their design and plastic material makes them more robust and harder to forge.