Alan Turing £50 note: could your serial number lead to a windfall?

Polymer note featuring the Second World War codebreaker enters circulation.

The new polymer £50 note featuring the scientist Alan Turing has entered circulation for the first time today.

Commenting, Myron Jobson, Personal Finance Campaigner, interactive investor, says: “The new polymer £50 note featuring the scientist Alan Turing looks snazzy and incorporates important security features which make them hard to counterfeit – and this in many ways is apt given Turing was a tech trailblazer.

“This is a great way to celebrate Pride month, and The Bank of England is proudly flying the Progress Pride flag atop its London's Threadneedle Street office today, to recognise improvements over the years since Turing’s mistreatment at the hands of the state for being gay.

“However, are £50 notes really necessary in today’s society? Do people routinely walk around with wads of £50 notes on their person? I can’t remember the last time I saw a £50 note in person. Contactless payments are increasingly becoming the preferred payment method as they require less physical interaction and are more secure.

“Recent statistics from UK Finance revealed that contactless payments accounted for more than a quarter of all payments made in the UK last year. In the past four years alone, contactless payments have jumped from being just 7% of all payments to 27%.

“With the rise of contactless cards and internet shopping, the popularity of cash payments continues to wane. The pandemic has sped up the transition to a cashless society, at least for now, with card payments preferred over cash as to reduce physical contact.

“Now the new £50 note has been released, it is again expected that some of the new £50 notes with rare serial numbers can fetch a larger sum than their face value - though not always by much.

“So if you end up with a new £50 note, it might be worth casting your eyes on the serial number to see if it is a collector’s item and worth a pretty penny.”