Forex trading

The pound sterling (also: British pound, or shortly pound) is the currency of the United Kingdom. Although most lands handle different banknotes, one can use it to pay with in the United Kingdom, as long as it has pound sterling on it. Furthermore, the official ISO code is GBP and the sign £. In this symbol, the letter L can be found, the first letter of libra, which Latin for pound.

After the decimalization, the term ‘new penny’ was used for quite a few years. Until 1982, this term was mentioned on the coins as ‘new pence’. The half new penny was used up until that same year, but the value (£0.005) was outdated due to inflation. Other coins that fitted in the decimal system, like the sixpence (£0.025), shilling (£0.05), florin (£0.10) and half crown (£0.125), could be used to pay with for several years. In 1994, both the shilling and the florin were taken out of circulation. The coin was decreased in size to make sure that the five and ten pence weren’t identical to the old coins.

Nowadays the following coins are available: one penny, two pence, five pence, ten pence, twenty pence, fifty pence, £1 and £2.