EVER heard of a bank that won't let you pay money in -- to your own account, no less?

Nor had I, until I went to my own with notes for 48,000 Italian lira -- worth about £14 -- left over from a recent trip to Rome. Sorry, they said, we won't accept the small denomination notes -- those for 5,000 and 1,000 lira -- which, in my case, amounted £2.34-worth.

Virtual peanuts, I know. But who, in their right mind, writes off even a couple of quids-worth of cash because someone else has arbitrarily decreed it's not worth their bother to bother with it? Besides what of the principle of someone having taken the money out of their account to buy foreign money in the first place then being denied the right to pay it back in later?

Answer: Sorree, it's company policy -- we can't accept small notes. Customer service? Goodwill? Worth less than £2.34 in Italian lira these days at Mega Bank Plc, it seems.

But not everywhere. Those same notes were gladly accepted by a nearby foreign exchange dealer and turned into sterling commission-free not five minutes later.

I took the trouble to wave the receipt for this transaction under the noses of the no-can-do folk at Mega Bank -- and told them, as far as I was concerned, it spelled out the difference between Can't and Won't.

And as the day approaches when the introduction of the euro in 12 EU countries stands to make your stash of foreign cash worthless if you deal with unhelpful banks which turn their noses up at small amounts of money, I advise that you do as I did -- take your business elsewhere.