EuroBillTracker

Now that Cyprus and Malta are full fledged members of the euro area (welcome again! ), you may wonder what to do with any pound or lira cash that you have, from a previous stay there maybe. Well, this month and next month your domestic central bank takes care of that ...

In January and February, the central banks of the Eurosystem will exchange pound and lira notes into euro cash - free of charge, that is, at the official rates of 0.585274 CYP or 0.429300 MTL per euro. This can be done at any branch office of "your" central bank; here is more info (in German) from the NCBs of Austria and Germany:

http://www.bundesbank.de/bargeld/bargel ... infuehrung
http://www.oenb.at/de/presse_pub/aussen ... m:14-77188

Christian

I'll ask at the NBB ... will they also take coins? Probably not ...

Keep the coins - they will be worth more than euro coins in a few decades time

bhoeyb wrote:will they also take coins? Probably not ...

Seems so; the Bundesbank (DE) and the OeNB (AT) do not. Exchanging "pound and lira notes" (see first post) is supposed to save you a trip to the central bank/s of the countries involved; as far as I know, the same thing was done in 2002 and 2007.

You can also bring or mail your coins to Cyprus and Malta, of course, where notes and coins will be exchanged for quite a while. Or keep them, as Fjon suggested. Or donate them - if everything else fails, I will gladly accept such donations.

Christian

Central banks should exchange everything: http://www.ecb.eu/bc/euro/changeover/cy ... l#exchange and http://www.ecb.eu/bc/euro/changeover/ma ... l#exchange.

Mullams wrote:Central banks should exchange everything

Sure, the central banks in the two countries will do that, and not only until the end of February. As an additional service, however, the NCBs in other euro countries will exchange your CYP and/or MTL notes, this month and next month. From the pages that you pointed at:

In connection with the introduction of the euro in Cyprus, the national central banks of the Member States that have adopted the euro will exchange Cyprus pound (CYP) banknotes against euro at par value until 29 February 2008. This service is free of charge.

On the page about Malta, you can find the same text regarding MTL notes.

Christian