New £5 notes featuring Sir Winston Churchill go into circulation
The new plastic £5 notes featuring Sir Winston Churchill have started to enter circulation.
The Bank of England said the new £5 notes are cleaner, safer and stronger than paper notes, and last around five years longer.
They can also survive a spin in the washing machine.
ITV News put the so-called "indestructible" notes to the test:
The first print-run of the 440 million new polymer banknotes mark the start of the withdrawal of the old notes as they are banked by retailers and businesses.
The Bank has been working with the cash industry to help ATMs get ready for the new notes - but some people might have to wait a week to get their hands on one.
The old £5 notes, featuring prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, can still be used in shops until they cease to become legal tender after May 5 2017.
The new notes introduce a new generation of security features, and are more difficult to counterfeit.
Features include a see-through window featuring the Queen's portrait, as well as Big Ben shown in gold foil on the front of the note, and silver on the back.
It was subsequently announced that novelist Jane Austen would be the face of the new £10 note from summer 2017.
Like the new £5 notes, the new £10 and £20 notes will also be printed on polymer.
The new notes will retain tiered sizing and include bold numerals and similar colour palettes to existing notes in order to help blind and vision impaired people distinguish between denominations.
While the new £5 note is the first Bank of England note to be printed on polymer, some parts of the UK have already experienced plastic banknotes.
In Scotland, Clydesdale Bank issued two million £5 polymer banknotes in March 2015 to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Forth Bridge.
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said: "The new fiver commemorates one of the greatest statesmen of all time, Winston Churchill, who remarked that 'a nation that forgets its past has no future'.
"Banknotes are repositories of the United Kingdom's collective memory, and we will be reminded of Churchill's enormous contributions as he once again becomes part of our daily lives as the new fiver flows out into tills and pockets."
When the Bank of England announced in 2013 that Churchill would replace Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note, thousands launched a petition for a woman to be portrayed on a note, as Fry's exclusion would mean the Queen would be the only female representation on British currency.