Coins aren’t welcome

SIR – Yesterday I went into our local Natwest, a large busy town-centre branch, and one of the few still open in the area, to pay in the proceeds of a charity event.

The total was £840, of which about half was coin – a transaction which a competent cashier, in the days before automation, could have processed in less than five minutes.

I queued for the lone coin checker I was told I must use, even though the coins were already sorted and bagged. Halfway through counting, the machine jammed with my money inside. I waited for a member of staff to reset the machine. I then joined a queue of around 10 people to have my notes and coin receipts checked. The total time spent in the bank was an hour and five minutes.

Is this progress?

Lesley Thompson

Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire

SIR – I find pennies and two-pence coins a pest in my pocket. Each day I dump the odd copper coins in a tin, until I have enough to fill a bank’s plastic one-pound bag.

I took £2 in coppers to HSBC and asked to exchange them for a single £2 coin – only to be told that I would have to pay that money into my bank account before I could get it back.

Is there a logic to this, or it is merely stupid?

Robert Cattle

York