Introduction
pound is the name of the British national currency and currency unit. The pound is mainly issued by the Bank of England, but there are other issuing institutions. The most commonly used symbol for pounds is ￡. The ISO 4217 currency code for the pound is GBP (GreatBritain Pound). In addition to the United Kingdom, the currency of the British overseas territory is also in pounds, and the exchange rate with the British pound is fixed at 1:1.
Since the UK was the first country in the world to implement industrialization, it once dominated the international financial industry. The British pound was once the most widely used currency for denomination and settlement in international settlement business. After World War I and World War II, Britain's economic status continued to decline, but due to historical reasons, the British financial industry was still very developed, and the pound still occupies a very high position in foreign exchange trading settlement. The British pound contains contributing figures and royal family.
Development history
pound is the UK's basic currency unit and was issued by the Bank of England, founded in 1694. auxiliary currency units were originally shillings and p . 1 pound equals 20 shillings and 1 shilling is equal to 12 pence. On February 15, 1971, the Bank of England implemented a new currency carriage system , and the auxiliary currency unit was changed. It is new pennies, 1 pound equals 100 new pennies. The banknotes in circulation include GBP with denominations of 5, 10, 20 and 50, and there are 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 New Pences and 1, 2 and 2 pounds.
The UK officially adopted the gold standard in 1821. The pound became the standard currency unit of the UK, containing 7.32238 grams of pure gold for every pound. In 1914, when World War I broke out, Britain abolished the gold standard, gold coins stopped circulation, and Britain stopped exchanging gold. On May 13, 1925, Britain implemented the gold nugget standard, and later it was forced to give up on September 21, 1931 due to the major world economic crisis. The pound evolved into a paper currency that could not be cashed out. However, due to the need for foreign exchange control, the gold content of pound was still stipulated on December 18, 1946 to be 3.58134 grams.
From the beginning of the 20th century, the British pound has always been the most important means of international payment and reserve currency in the capitalist world. After World War I, the British pound's international reserve currency status tended to decline and was gradually replaced by the US dollar. During the outbreak of World War II, Britain implemented strict foreign exchange controls, fixing the pound exchange rate at the level of 1 pound to 4.03 US dollars. On July 15, 1947, the UK announced that the British pound would be freely converted. Due to the rapid loss of foreign exchange reserves, foreign exchange control was restored in August of the same year.
Features
Due to historical factors, the British currency law is not unified and extremely complex.
is in England and Wales . Bank of England vouchers are the legal currency of unlimited legal compensation . Channel Islands and Isle of Man and other places also print banknotes of equivalent value to Bank of England vouchers, which are also local legal currency . However, in the Scotland and Northern Ireland laws, there is no such thing as defining currency, so all the paper notes in the two places are actually exchange vouchers for British coins.
Even in England, where fiat currency is recognized, the so-called "fiat currency" means that when the debtor deposits the debtor in full amount of such currency, the creditor shall not claim that the debtor shall owe the debt, but there is no restriction on the currency of daily transactions, because it is believed that That is contract freedom.
pound daily trading amount ranked third behind the euro and yen. Most of the trading of pounds is concentrated in London, the world's largest foreign exchange market, with a relatively low share in the US market and a lower Asian market. The trading of the pound is mainly concentrated in the US dollar and the euro, while it is relatively small against other currencies. Until the end of World War II, the British pound was always the reference or benchmark currency for other currencies. The nickname of pound Cable (literally translated as cable) is derived from a telex, which is the machine originally used to conduct foreign exchange trading. This also confirmed the core position of the pound at that time.
Due to its complex domestic problems and its close and far relationship with the European currency union, the pound exchange rate often experiences roller coaster fluctuations. The crisis caused by the British forced to withdraw from the European exchange rate mechanism in the early 1990s had a profound impact on the pound.
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Before the euro was launched, the pound and the Swiss franc usually benefited from doubts about a unified currency, but after the euro was successfully launched, these doubts were swept away. After initially following the euro-dollar decline and performing poorly, the euro-sterling continued to rise against the pound, setting a record high above £0.72 in May 2003.
