Share sales at currency bureaux

TRAVELLERS can now sell their shares when they change their currency, writes Vivien Goldsmith.

Travelex, which runs bureaux de change and is 36 per cent owned by Hambros Bank, is launching a cut-price postal service.

Customers can only sell shares, not buy them. They will have to send off the share certificates with a form available from Travelex bureaux. Selling privatisation shares will cost a flat rate of pounds 9.50, while other shares will cost 1 per cent with a minimum of pounds 9.50.

There are Travelex bureaux at Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and other airports, ferry terminals, the QE2, the Tower of London and Farthing Corner service station on the M2 in Kent.

Travelex, which uses Hambro Clearing, a centralised dealing service, will consider expanding into sharebuying once the share selling service is established.

Lloyd Dorfman, chief executive of Travelex, said he did not expect travellers to carry their share certificates with them, but thought plenty of customers had shares and did not know how to sell them.

They would be glad to pick up the leaflet and deal by post. Sharebuying by post is more difficult to organise as clients have either to set up an account or be offered credit.