During a meeting between Bob Ainsworth, MP for Coventry North East, and Post Office Chief Executive, David Mills on Thursday 12th February 2004, the Post Office confirmed their commitment to the further enhancement of their security procedures on foreign currency transactions.  This meeting followed Bob Ainsworth’s involvement in the case of Mr Nichols from Coventry who faces prosecution in Greece for passing counterfeit foreign currency he says he purchased from the Post Office.

Following the Post Office’s earlier commitment to install scanning equipment in all Post Office branches offering a Bureau de Change service, they have further confirmed that all Post Offices branches have now been connected to the Horizon System so that the time and details of a transaction as well as an individual member of staff are recorded and can be traced.  As part of this further security enhancement high denomination notes bought through the ‘Buy Back’ service will not be re-sold to customers.

During the same meeting the Post Office provided assurances that they would do all they could to help Mr Nichols in the preparation of his defence

Bob Ainsworth who has being strongly urging the Post Office to improve their security procedures on foreign currency transactions following the case of Mr Nichols said;

“I welcome the Post Offices commitment to provide help to Mr Nichols in the preparation of his defence.  I am also pleased that the Post Office were able to confirm their commitment to further security procedure improvements during yesterdays meeting.  I am satisfied that the Post Office have now done all that was needed to improve their foreign currency transaction procedures.  

“In my opinion Bureau de Change is the most insecure end of the banking system; however, with the introduction of these new security procedures the Post Office have ensured that it will be a lot more secure in the future”.