When can I stop using the old £10?

More than £2 billion worth of old-style £10 notes remain in circulation, with less than a fortnight to go until they are no longer accepted in shops across the UK.

The Bank of England said the withdrawal rate is ‘broadly as expected’ ahead of the March 1 deadline, at which point the paper £10 note will cease to be legal tender – replaced completely by the polymer version.

Anyone with the old notes beyond this point will still be able to exchange them for the new equivalent at the Bank of England.

The Jane Austen polymer note was launched last September as an update on the old version featuring Charles Darwin.

According to the latest figures, the value of paper £10 notes in circulation is around £2.182 billion –  the equivalent of around 218 million paper £10 notes. 

This means that paper £10 notes represent around 27 per cent of £10s in circulation.

Currently, weekly returns of paper tenners are averaging a value £85 million.

The new tenner will be followed in three years time by a new £20 note which will feature the British painter JMW Turner. 

The new polymer tenner launched in September last year and shoppers have until March 1 to use paper notes before they are no longer legal tender