On 27 February, the launch date of the new Bank of Ireland £5 and £10 notes, Santander will carry stock of the new notes at five branches: Royal Avenue, Belfast; High Street, Newtownards; Church Street, Ballymena; Hill Street, Newry; and The Diamond, Derry/Londonderry.
The new note is designed to be:
- More secure with additional security features to make counterfeiting more difficult;
- Easier to use for customers who are hard of sight with a tactile feature incorporating four raised dots in a square formation;
- Cleaner, made with a dirt resistant material; and
- Longer lasting with an expected life span two and a half times that of the old notes.
The new note will retain the image of Bushmills Distillery in County Antrim which is featured on the existing, cotton notes. The design was introduced in April 2008 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of King James 1 granting a license to the area around Bushmills to distil whiskey.
Kirsty Lacey, Santander’s Director of Transformation & Support said: “The new note has many features that will help with security and longevity. At Santander we are particularly pleased with the introduction of the raised dots which provide additional support to our visually impaired customers on top of the Voice Guided ATMs across our entire branch network.”
The remainder of Santander branches will receive the new notes over the coming weeks with stock expected at all branches and ATMS by the end of March.
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Notes to Editors
Santander UK is a financial services provider in the UK that offers a wide range of personal and commercial financial products and services. It has brought real competition to the UK, through its innovative products for retail customers and relationship banking model for UK SMEs. At 31 December 2018, the bank has c23,800 employees. It serves around 15 million active customers, via a nationwide branch network, telephone, mobile and online banking; and 64 regional Corporate Business Centres. Santander UK is subject to the full supervision of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) in the UK. Santander UK plc customers’ eligible deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) in the UK.
Banco Santander (SAN SM, STD US, BNC LN) is a leading retail and commercial bank, founded in 1857 and headquartered in Spain. It has a meaningful presence in 10 core markets in Europe and the Americas, and is the largest bank in the euro zone by market capitalization. At the end of 2018, Banco Santander had EUR 981 billion in customer funds (deposits and mutual funds), 144 million customers, 13,000 branches and 200,000 employees. Banco Santander made attributable profit of EUR 7,810 million in 2018, an increase of 18% compared to the previous year.
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