ISSUE 1676 Monday 27 December 1999

Cash rush as revellers liquify their assets

AMOUNTS of cash in circulation from now until the new Millennium is expected to reach record levels as party-goers and bargain hunters rush to bank cash machines.

Cash withdrawals are expected to hit record levels with more than #30 billion in coins and notes expected to be in circulation. Withdrawals are likely to be boosted by Millennium nerves, with people expected to take out cash because of fears that the Millennium bug could cause chaos in computerised bank accounts. But the Bank of the England said it was confident that Millennium bug problems had been solved.

It has also made provision for the huge withdrawals expected, with an extra #8 billion available to banks and another #12 billion in reserve. A Bank spokesman said: "As far as the Millennium bug goes, banks and building societies are confident that it will be business as usual over the Millennium weekend." The organisation in the front line of the cash machine battle is the Association for Payment Clearing Services, which looks after banknote distribution.

Richard Tyson-Davies, head of public affairs at the association, said: "The key thing will be getting enough notes into the 25,000 cash machines and then re-stocking them to meet a record demand. Security teams are getting ready to do a more frequent level of re-stocking than normal, particularly since we don't want people finding a cash machine empty and then getting into a panic.

"In terms of stocking cash machines, we think this should go fairly smoothly, especially as there are computer systems to warn when a particular machine is running low. However we could have a problem on the evening of Dec 31 in railway stations and Trafalgar Square, where thousands will make it quite difficult for re-stocking."

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 27, 1999

Answers

Old Git, Went into Lloyds Bank on 21st Dec & asked whether my husband needed to give notice of a large cash withdrawal."No,you can have the money now." was the reply. So no problems for us anyway.Building Society required 2 days notice so that the money could be sent down to the branch.No problem otherwise.

Zeki,the Anatolian, finally earning his keep.Mind you,his favourite pastime is tearing up paper !!!

-- Chris (griffen@globalnet.co.uk), December 27, 1999.