British Pound – The official, yet informally known currency of the United Kingdom
The British Pound and the Pound Sterling are essentially the same with the only difference that one is called more formal than the other.Historically, the Pound Sterling or the British Pound dates its origin back to the Anglo Saxon times. It is believed that during these times, silver was used to mint coins called Sterlings. Before 1971, the Pound was the only form of currency available in the UK. The start of the decimalization system with currencies resulted in the Pound being made up of 100 units called pence
The correlation between the Great British pound and the Euro is well known in financial circles. Till 1992, the British Pound was definitely a part of the Euro, until news of the Pound unable to sustain itself caused UK to withdraw their currency from the Euro. If I were George Soros that day, I would have made a Million dollar on selling the Pound short. That is exactly what George did, and he became richer by a Million.
Did you know when was the sterling note ever issued? Well, in 1694 the Bank of England printed the first Sterling note for use by the public. By 1826, the governing body of the United Kingdom had issued permissions to 65 such banks to print their paper notes. The British Pound is indeed one of the more stable currencies in the world market today. Did you know though that before 1914, it was considered as one of the most volatile currencies in the Foreign Exchange Market?