All frequently used coins except the £2 coin (coins shown are those after the extensive 2008 redesign)

The pound sterling (symbol: £, ₤; ISO code: GBP), commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, itsCrown Dependencies (the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny).

The Channel Islands and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling; see Manx pound, Jersey pound, and Guernsey pound. The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar (alongside the Gibraltar pound), the Falkland Islands (alongside the Falkland Islands pound) and Saint Helena and Ascension (alongside the Saint Helena pound). The Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Saint Helena pounds are separate currencies, pegged at parity to the pound sterling.

Sterling is the fourth most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen. Together with those three currencies it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF Special Drawing Rights, with a 11.3% weighting as of 2011. Sterling is also the third most held reserve currency in global reserves.

Name

The full, official name, pound sterling, (plural: pounds sterling) is used mainly in formal contexts and also when it is necessary to distinguish the United Kingdom currency from other currencies with the same name. Otherwise the term pound is normally used. The currency name is sometimes abbreviated to just sterling, particularly in the wholesale financial markets, but not when referring to specific amounts; for example, "Payment is accepted in sterling" but never "These cost five sterling". The abbreviations "ster." or "stg." are sometimes used. The term British pound is commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency. A common slang term is quid (singular and plural) which is thought to derive from the Latin phrase "quid pro quo".

There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the term "pound sterling". Some sources say it dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when coins called sterlings were minted from silver; 240 of these sterlings weighed one pound, and large payments came to be made in "pounds of sterlings". Other references, including the Oxford English Dictionary, say a sterling was a silver penny used in England by the Normans, and date the term to around 1300. For more discussion of the etymology of "sterling" see Sterling silver.

The currency sign is the pound sign (£) which is usually written with a single cross-bar, as on sterling bank notes, though a version with a double cross-bar (₤) is also sometimes seen. The pound sign derives from the black-letter "L", an abbreviation of Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) used for pounds, shillings and pence in the British pre-decimal duodecimal currency system.Libra was the basic Roman unit of weight, derived from the Latin word for scales or balance.

The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP. Occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but this is incorrect because the ISO 3166 country code for (the United Kingdom of) Great Britain and Northern Ireland is GB (see Terminology of the British Isles#Terminology in detail). The Crown dependencies use their own (non-ISO) codes: GGP (Guernsey pound), JEP (Jersey pound) and IMP (Isle of Man pound). Stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX (sometimes GBp), when listing stock prices.