The introduction of the Euro at the beginning of the year means that the little piles of coins left over from foreign holidays and gathering dust at the back of cupboards and down the sides of sofas in the UK are now obsolete.
But while they are of no use to their owners, they can be of great benefit to Cancer Research UK, the largest independent cancer research organisation in the world.
Since the Foreign Coin Collection was launched in February, more than £113,000 has been banked by customers and staff of Lloyds TSB, with a further £222,000 being processed. The money will be used by Cancer Research UK to fund vital cancer research.
'The introduction of the Euro presented a great opportunity to do something worthwhile with redundant foreign change,' said John Spence, Lloyds TSB Group director of retail distribution. 'Because each coin has to be individually identified and sorted by hand, the counting process is extremely labour intensive and time consuming, but counting should be completed by the end of this year.'