Old £10 notes to be removed from circulation in 2018

The deadline to spend outmoded notes has been set for March 1 2018. This is the announcement from the Bank of England, who says the old paper notes can no longer be accepted by retailers after this date.

The obsolete tenners, featuring Charles Darwin, were recently replaced by polymer notes in September. The notes, featuring author Jane Austen, are considered more durable and more difficult to counterfeit. They are comprised of the same materials used in the new £5 notes featuring Winston Churchill.

The extinction of the old £10 notes, which have been in circulation since November 2000, continues the recent retirement of both paper £5 notes and round pound coins. Though only introduced in September, the newer notes already account for 55 per cent of £10 notes in circulation. Since the beginning of production in August, the Bank has already printed more than 275m notes.

In a statement the Bank of England said: “The £10 paper banknote is the oldest Bank of England banknote design in circulation and therefore the security features require updating to take advantage of developments in technology.”

The new note is smaller than its predecessor, but larger than the new fiver. The size rations are the same as that between the old paper five and ten pound notes.