February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Stephen McKinley
If you still have Irish punts under the mattress or in an old jam jar, the time to take them to the bank is now.
The euro has been the single European currency since Jan. 1, 2001, and manifested itself in the form of actual notes and coins on Jan. 1, 2002. National currencies, including the Irish punt, are now being phased out.
The cut-off point for the punt is Feb. 9, when Irish banknotes and coins will no longer be legal tender. Exchanging these notes for U.S. dollars after Feb. 9 will be problematic, according to the CEO of Country Bank in New York, Bill Burke.
“After Feb. 10, we’ll have to send in [the notes] on a collection basis, which means filling out a form, sending the cash in a special envelope to the Irish Central Bank, and then waiting perhaps a long time to get a check in return,” Burke told the Echo.
“I think everybody has cashed in by now,” Burke continued, “and at most you’re talking about only a couple of hundred pounds, left-over holiday money.”
Never miss an issue of The Irish Echo
Subscribe to one of our great value packages.
But one Irish-born Bronx resident, who declined to give her name, called the Echo on Friday asking questions about exchanging the punt in time for the deadline.
At Country Bank’s Woodlawn branch in the Bronx, an official said that the cut-off point for exchanging punts would be Jan. 30, but Burke affirmed that the branches would still accept punts for exchange into dollars through Feb. 9.
At the Woodlawn branch, the official said that many people had called asking about the demise of the Irish currency, but usually their questions related to only a small amount of money, _10 or _20 at most. She added that customers could also change their money into euros in preparation for a trip to Ireland.