I went to London and Scotland.
Somehow, I got my hands on some Scottish Pounds issued by the Scottish banks.
In Scotland, Scottish pounds are valued 1:1 against English pounds, issued by the Bank of England.
In England and other parts of the UK, Scottish pounds MIGHT not be accepted. IF they are accepted, they are valued at 1:1 against the GBP. So that's fine.
I never knew this. So I brought Scottish pounds back to Singapore. Not much, just 15 pounds. I thought... pounds are pounds right? All in the UK, same same, no difference...
Well... WRONG.
I went to Malaysia recently. I wanted to exchange some of my small pound denominations to ringgit.
They accepted my Bank of England pounds but rejected my Scottish pounds. The money changer said. There's probably no one who's going to accept those where I'm staying.
That's when I started getting worried. So I thought, Ok, nevermind, I'll just change them back to Singapore dollars when I'm back in SG. So I went to Arcade at Raffles Place... and same issue. Some money changers did not accept Scottish pounds.
One money changer I talked to give me a rate of S$1.05 to 1 pound... HELLO!?!?!?!
The current rate of the GBP is around S$1.80 per pound.
And this guy is quoting me S$1.05... I mean ok, I understand that it's not really accepted so I was willing to take $1.70 or so... That's already considered a pretty big cut in terms of foreign exchange.
But at S$1.05... No thanks. I'll find some other way to use them or exchange them at a more fair value.
On further research, I found out that Scottish pounds are NOT legal tender. They are not illegal. As in they are backed by the Bank of England. BoE allows some of the Scottish banks to issue Scottish pounds. So if you're in the UK, you can use the pounds legally, but they are somewhat "not the official money". And you can exchange Scottish pounds to BoE pounds 1:1 at the bank in the UK.
So anyway... lesson learnt. Not all pounds are the same. If you're leaving the UK, change all other pounds to BoE pounds. Cos after leaving the UK, the other pounds will not be valued as much as the BoE pounds. But in the UK, there's not much difference.
Now... if only I could find a UK person or someone going to the UK so that I could somewhat exchange my Scottish pounds for a sufficiently fair value......
Update : I called Fountain money changer at Marina Square. They are willing to buy at S$1.70. I'll be dropping by there one of these days.
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