Co-op bank declines offer of cash

My wife has a Co-op credit card but not a Co-op bank account. She has regularly paid off her credit card balance in the local Co-op bank using cash. Recently, however, her attempt to pay off a balance of £350 using cash was refused with the statement: "Sorry madam, we do not accept payments in cash." No other explanation was forthcoming and my wife had to return the cash to her Abbey account and then get a counter cheque that the Co-op was happy to accept. Do you have any idea why the Co-op don't like cash at their bank? AH, Wallingford, Oxon A case of a bank not accepting cash appears to be a real mystery. When presenting a £10 note, the Bank of England promises to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £10 – but why not at the Bank of Co-op? According to the Co-op, the reason for the problem lies in the requirements of the Payments Services Directive that came into force from 1 November 2009. These regulations require that cash payments to all retail bank accounts, including credit cards, paid through branches, must be credited to the account immediately. Unfortunately, due to "system constraints", the Co-op has not been able to achieve this for credit cards. The Co-op readily admits that the size of the cost to change the system for the small number of customers impacted was illogical and it would seem that this appears to be yet another step towards a bank-controlled and fee-infested cashless society. Steve Playle is team leader at Surrey Trading Standards Service. We welcome letters but regret we cannot answer individually. Email: [email protected] Please include a daytime phone number