We speak to the Chief Cashier of the Bank of England about the new scheme to get the public to vote for which person, place, theme or achievement they want to be on the next set of UK banknotes.
00:00The Bank of England produces banknotes for the public to use, so we think it's a great opportunity to ask them what they would like to see on the banknotes.
00:08In the past, we've asked them about which particular historic figure they'd like to see on the banknotes.
00:14This time, we're taking a step further back and asking them what theme they'd like to see on the banknotes.
00:19So, would they like to keep historic figures or would they like to celebrate architecture, landmarks, there's so much around the country.
00:26We're suggesting six different themes. One of them is architecture and landmarks.
00:31Another one is arts, culture, sport, innovation, nature, noteworthy milestones or historic figures.
00:40It's really easy. People can go to the Bank of England's website where there's a form listing the six themes.
00:47The public can choose up to three that they're most interested in or there's a box at the bottom if they want to suggest something that we haven't already come up with.
00:55So, as long as we get the responses by the 31st of July.
00:59So, as part of asking the public, you're visiting schools and community groups.
01:04So, I'm coming up to Leeds this week with a sort of big community group visiting a school and I think they're busy designing some banknotes for me to look at.
01:13So, I'm really eager to hear what ideas they've got.
01:16Yeah, I think that something that broadly resonates across the UK is important, but also one of the things at the Bank of England we think about is how might we turn that into a design for a banknote?
01:29Because one of the key reasons that we're updating the banknotes is we want to make sure we've got the latest security features in them.
01:34So, we need to think how can that image and design work with our security features.
01:38Why do physical banknotes still matter and how are banknotes' roles evolving?
01:46So, still for about a fifth of the population, cash is their preferred means of payment.
01:51And for a significant proportion of those, it is their only means of payment.
01:56So, for some people, it is incredibly important.
01:58Some people use it as a contingency.
02:02So, recently there were the big power outages in Spain and Portugal where the sort of card systems and things weren't working, but people could use cash.
02:10So, having it there for contingency.
02:12Other people use it as a budgeting tool.
02:15It can be really powerful for people who need to be incredibly careful how much money they spend.
02:20But at the Bank of England, we're committed to producing banknotes as long as the public are demanding them, and we just want to make sure that they've got the best banknotes that we can produce.
