Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Does anyone know if £50 notes sterling are acceptable in money exchange bureaus in Turkey?

Having visited Turkey from the TRNC over the last 15 yrs, you will find it very difficult to change £50 notes.
Turkey works with $ & Euros, you can't even draw Sterling out of an ATM, well not in the parts of Turkey we visit.
I would say if you are living in the TRNC change your money before you travel, as you will get a far better exchange rate.
If you are traveling from the UK carry smaller notes with you, they are easier to change at a bad rate of exchange.
We normaly use our UK HSBC credit card for most larger bills with no problems.

rogerb wrote:Does anyone know if £50 notes sterling are acceptable in money exchange bureaus in Turkey?

Hi roger

Was in olu deniz in June and I changed 3 or 4 in the high street money exchange for tourist .
I could not vouch for turkey ,other than this part and shop .

Kav

Ps if you have loads send them to me and I will Change them and then return them honestly

Never ever had problems getting sterling from ATMs in Turkey, HSBC TEB Geranti banks all over Turkey. £10 and £20 preferred and must not be marked or torn.

woodspeckie.
Please clarify were you where able to get sterling from a ATM, I worked in Turkey and have been going for many year for 4 months summer holidays, and there was NO ATM's in Alanya ( Antalya Province ) which would dispence Sterling. I am and have been a HSBC account holder for 50 years ( even when it was called the Midland ).
Maybe in Istanbul ther are ATM's but allas not in the Provences, not even in the second major city Mersin.

Thanks folks.

I travel Istanbul almost every month! Last month during the food exhibition I must have changed at least 1200 pounds at various exchange bureaus - all 50 pound notes, with no problems or questions asked. rarely they may ask to see the ID, but usually the cameras recording the whole exchange have a good view of your looks - anything wrong and your pictures would be at the police immigration control desks in departure halls!

Just come back from Izmir and the Exchanges nearly bit my hand off when I showed them 50 Sterling notes for Lira. However I visited 5 different banks and asked if it was possible to obtain sterling from an ATM, a resounding NO. This included HSBC, Garanti and TEB plus two other Turkish banks that I can't remember the name. One Turkish bank teller said "this is Turkey" No answer to that really!! There are in fact a number of Turkish banks that wont accept some plastic cards if they are not issued by a dedicated Turkish bank.

sophie wrote:Just come back from Izmir and the Exchanges nearly bit my hand off when I showed them 50 Sterling notes for Lira. However I visited 5 different banks and asked if it was possible to obtain sterling from an ATM, a resounding NO. This included HSBC, Garanti and TEB plus three other Turkish banks that I can't remember the name. One Turkish bank teller said "this is Turkey" No answer to that really!!

I guess it really depends which exchange bureau you go to Sophie. As for banks, if you have a bank account with them, they would not give you any GBP from ATM's because they do not stock them due to very little demand. However, when I asked for GBP from my sterling account they were happy to give me the TL equivalent by transferring it to my TL accounty first and drawing out from there. Their rates were not any different than the exchange bureaus' - if not better.

The prolem is, the banks prefer to hold currency that is in good demand in that city or region. The most exchanged currencies in ıstanbul are USD and EU, both by the Europeans, Americans and any other visitor from Middle East to China! Hence the high street banks do not like stocking GBP. Banks at the airport and Head Office branches wherever they are would probably have them. If you asked the banks, most would probably not have Riyals, Chinese RMB or even japanese Yen either

In Cyprus it is a different story of course, due to thousands of British having bank accounts - but then again have you ever tried to transfer GBP using Western Union? They will only do USD transfers!