Information Pound Sterling
The pound sterling (symbol: £; ISO code: GBP), commonly known simply as the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny). A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the pound.
Sterling is the fourth most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the United States 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 an 11.3% weighting as of 2011 (USD 41.9%, Euro 37.4%, Yen 9.4%). Sterling is also the third most held reserve currency in global reserves (about 4%).
