Finally, all those pesky euro and dollar cents that have been racked up on trips abroad can be swapped for British pounds after a special kiosk was installed in London.
The first machine will be set up in King’s Cross Station on 26th October, with five more machines planned to be installed this year in other stations.
The company behind the technology, Fourex, recently won Virgin Media’s Pitch to Rich competition, and prior to that had a highly successful crowdfunding round where raised £670,000 within two weeks, 250 per cent more than its target.
“The idea was born out of frustration. I had a whole lot of money lying in a drawer that I could do nothing with as the value of exchanging it outweighed the value of the money. There is nothing else out there, and this was a solution to a problem that no-one else had a solution to,” co-founder Jeff Paterson told the BBC.
The machine uses special image recognising technology that can process ten coins per second and accepts unsorted coins and notes of over 150 currencies.
Paterson said that the introduction of the Euro left “billions of old currencies” worthless and that going to particular country’s bank to exchange £10-worth is not realistic.
According to Fourex, there could be up to £3bn of unused foreign currency in UK homes.
The company has been in talks with Transport for London so it is likely we will see these kiosks appear around London’s tube stations in the near future.
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