Unlike pounds, which can be coins or paper, pence only appear as coins. The official term for currency in the United Kingdom is the pound sterling, often abbreviated as GBP. The term “pound sterling” would be equivalent to the “U.S. Dollar” in the United States (though their exact values differ). If you would like to refer to more than one, the correct plural form is pounds sterling.

Banks and traditional providers often have extra costs, which they pass to you by marking up the exchange rate. Our smart tech means we’re more efficient – which means you get a great rate. In Indonesia, official term for money is uang, while the currency is rupiah (Rp). The common slang terms for money in Indonesia is called duit, which usually refer to paper money; and perak (from silver) for coin. In India slang names for coins are more common than the currency notes.

History of the British Pound Sterling

Check for great rates, enjoy faster repeat transfers with a few taps, and find the closest payout and send locations from anywhere. Two hundred forty pence in one pound sterling remained the standard for nearly 1,200 years until 1971 when the British Parliament instituted decimalization to make 100 pence equal to one pound sterling. In pub culture five and ten pound notes are sometimes called “blue beer tokens” and “brown beer tokens” respectively. Quid (singular and plural) is used for pound sterling or £, in British slang. It is thought to derive from the Latin phrase “quid pro quo”.30 A pound (£1) may also be referred to as a “nicker” or “nugget” (rarer). South African slang for various amounts of money borrows many terms from the rest of the English speaking world, such as the word “grand” when referring to R1,000.

1. A 10 paisa coin is called dassi and for 20 paisa it is bissi.
2. The original note was printed in black and green on the back side.
3. For price indices, the annual observations are usually the average of monthly observations.
4. The fact Scrooge was paying Cratchit an amount slightly above that of an average bookkeeper speaks to Scrooge’s miserliness.
5. Let’s look at some examples of sentences that use pound and quid.

By 1944, a quart of milk was worth 9 pennies, almost an entire shilling. This was a horrifying increase in price, given that in 1939, the same amount of milk was worth 3 pennies. In four years, the war had managed to triple the price of milk. Keep in mind that in today’s currency, a single shilling is worth only 5 pence and you can see how robust the difference is between the economy of Britain in the 1940s and Britain today. Below the pound where the shillings and pennies, although a dizzying variety of coins combine these two. Our encryption and fraud prevention efforts help protect your Western Union® money transfers.

The letter “p” is shorthand (in both writing and speech) for pence or pennies. Alternatively, the shorthand for pound sterling is “pound” (in speech) and £ (in writing). The term “quid” began sometime in the late 17th century, but the link with the British currency is unclear. Some scholars believe that Italian immigrants extracted the term from “scudo,” the name for gold and silver coins of various denominations used in Italy from the 16th century through the 19th century. In Sweden money in general is colloquially referred to by the words stålar, kosing, deg (“dough”) or older klöver (“clover”) and the English loanword cash.

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1. Although there are many popular theories about how the word quid came to be used in relation to money, the origin of the term is uncertain.
2. It’s also usually cheaper than credit card, as credit cards are more expensive to process.
3. Before Decimal Day in 1971, sterling used the Carolingian monetary system (“£sd”), under which the largest unit was a pound (£) divided into 20 shillings (s), each of 12 pence (d).
4. It takes a little more time for your money to reach Xe, and as a result, can delay the speed of transfer.
5. In the context of money, the word pound is used to refer to a denomination of currency used in the United Kingdom.

Also, a “century” or a “bill” have been used for this value.£500 is known as a “monkey”£1,000 is commonly referred to as a grand, e.g., £4,000 would be called 4 grand, or rarely in certain dialects as a “bag” (from the rhyming slang “Bag of Sand”). In some cases, £1,000 is known as one large, i,e., £10,000 would be ten large. £2,000 has been known as an Archer,37 having been coined by Rik Mayall’s character Alan B’stard in TV comedy The New Statesman. Although the prices may seem trivial, 1940s currency was worth a lot more than today. In 1940, the average annual salary in the United Kingdom was 185 pounds, or 3,700 shillings in a year. It would have been shocking to see prices go through the roof.

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Dimes and quarters used to be sometimes collectively referred to as “silver” due to their historic composition of 90% silver prior to 1965. In general, money is referred to as “lana” (wool), “varo” or “feria” (change). Normally, “cents” are called “sen”, but in the northern region (Penang, Kedah, Perlis) one “kupang” is 10 sen, thus 50 sen is “5 kupang”. “duit” (pronounce “do it”) means “money”, such as in “Saya tiada wang” (“I have no money”).

The word “guita” in Lunfardo (Buenos Aires slang) is nowadays synonymous with “money”. The pound is the official currency of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The pound sterling is the fourth most-traded currency in the foreign exchange market. I started using Ria App during the pandemic to avoid social contact. Since then, I have discovered how easy it is to send money to other countries. Compare our rate and fee with our competitors and see the difference for yourself.