The plastic fiver...09:56am 3rd April 2005
The Bank of England has been downsizing our banknotes for years - but now it wants to make them out of plastic.
It is a plan that is likely to cause as much controversy as the day in 1984 when the old £1 note was replaced by the £1 coin.
First to get the plastic treatment will be the fiver, a note which itself caused controversy when it was the first to be reduced in size in 1990.
Under the new proposals, designed to make the money last longer, millions of the familiar notes will be taken out of circulation and replaced with ones made of polymer. Although fivers are popular with the public, they are seldom offered in cash machines operated by banks which encourage larger withdrawals.
This means the existing supply is wearing out as it changes hands in millions of daily transactions in shops and pubs.
The Bank of England has been looking for a solution to the problem for some time. Three years ago, it started coating the latest fiver - which carries a picture of social reformer Elizabeth Fry - with varnish to lengthen its life.
Now, it plans to follow the example of Mexico, Singapore and Australia and opt for a plastic note.
No final decision has been taken but officials have been working behind the scenes to improve the supply of £5 notes to a population that wants them but finds High Street banks reluctant to supply them.
The value of £5 notes in circulation over the past decade has remained steady, at about £1billion. Yet during the same period, the note has almost disappeared from cash dispensers.
Instead, the £5 note is increasingly a person-to-person denomination, used by small traders, shopkeepers, taxi drivers and the Post Office. The plastic notes would be produced at the Bank of England's printing plant at Debden in Essex, run by specialist company De La Rue, which produces more than 150 national currencies.
A senior source at the bank confirmed that the idea was being looked at seriously. Barry Boswell, one of Britain's leading dealers in 'collectible' bank-notes, said: "A plastic note would last about ten times as long as a paper one - up to 18 months."
But he warned: "There is a fundamental problem with plastic notes - they become very limp and difficult to count towards the end of their lives - almost like an old rag. Cashiers can't just wet their fingers and count them as they can with ordinary notes."
Mr Boswell added that, even if paper fivers were to be withdrawn immediately, it would be 40 to 50 years before they became a collector's item.
Australia gave the world its first plastic money in 1988 to mark its bicentenary and now has several polymer notes in use. Andrew Bailey, the Bank of England's chief cashier whose signature is on every new banknote, said: "We are committed to retaining the £5 note for as long as people want it and to ensuring its availability."
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