Christine Levite, vice president of communications for American Express, said that because many of the 12 national currencies that are being replaced will cease to be legal tender in stores in February, "we are telling everyone to find all those francs, D-marks and guilder notes that might be sitting in desk drawers and bring them into our foreign exchange offices for conversion".
This amount is difficult to afford in the current circumstances, especially as so many people have not received their salaries due to the bank and post offices and foreign exchange centres being closed, and the extreme difficulty of movement in the city.
The transition is even more profound for Ben Jordan, a foreign exchange trader who leaves his office in Lower Manhattan every afternoon, and arrives two-plus hours later at an 1860s farmhouse where snapping turtles swim in a wetland in the backyard.
He is a director for foreign exchange sales in the New York offices of Deutsche Bank.
Last week Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland, two of Britain's biggest banks, set aside a total of £900m for settlements related to rigging of the foreign exchange market, and the Serious Fraud Office launched a criminal investigation into a misstatement of profit guidance at Tesco.
Though it was supposed to be the back office of Bank of America, the number was for a Singapore law office, according to a foreign exchange executive who has seen the fake confirmation.
In one corner was an office with the English words "Foreign Exchange" above the door.
A native of Singapore who has worked for J. P. Morgan the last 14 years, she runs its office there and helps manage its foreign exchange, bond and other markets-oriented businesses.
"We are very prudent in relation to our foreign exchange inflows," says Uday Raval, director of the U.S. office of Karvy, India's Charles Schwab.
Silicon Valley can take some comfort from the experience of the City of London which, its critics say, is paying some of the highest office rents in the world just to trade foreign exchange over the telephone.
