Old Lady quids-in with fivers

First there were commemorative watches, then there were commemorative bottles of beer – called Red Dawn. Now the Bank of England has joined the crush to make a buck out of Hong Kong’s handover to China by printing special £5 notes.

The handover is big business and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street hasn’t missed a trick. She has reconfigured her presses for the first time in 303 years to produce 500,000 fivers with the serial number prefix HK97.