by ChrisCook
Wed Jan 30th, 2013 at 03:09:12 AM EST
There is an interesting BBC article today [26-01-2013] on the subject of Bank of England £1m ('Giant') and £100m ('Titan') notes.

front-paged by afew
In Scotland today there is private bank note issuance by Bank of Scotland

Clydesdale Bank

and Royal Bank of Scotland

Four Northern Irish banks also issue notes.
An interesting side note for bank-note nerds is the fact that we have £100 notes North of the Border which presumably fill the same Black Economy niche as the 500 'Bin Laden' notes sitting mainly under Spanish beds or in drug barons' brief-cases.
Also Royal Bank of Scotland still has a few £1 notes floating about, but they seem to be collector's items these days.

I knew that this private bank note issuance is matched pound for pound by sterling from the Bank of England, but I had not realised that to this day the Bank of England still provides this sterling in note form.
Note here that I seem to recall having read somewhere that the note-issuing private banks somehow get to keep seigniorage outside the working week ie week-ends and bank holidays. I'm not sure how that would work.
So, rather than shipping huge heaps of small (ie £50 or less) denomination notes around their vaults, little wedges of 'Giants' and 'Titans' are apparently moved around somewhere in the bowels of the Bank of England.
You couldn't make it up: or rather they could; they did; and they still do.
So for those who thought the Trillion dollar coin was surreal, Giants and Titans still live.