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ISO 4217 | |||||||||||||
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Code | GBP | ||||||||||||
Denominations | |||||||||||||
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Issuance | |||||||||||||
Central bank | Bank of England | ||||||||||||
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Printer | De La Rue | ||||||||||||
Demographics | |||||||||||||
England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man | |||||||||||||
British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (Tristan da Cunha only), Gibraltar | |||||||||||||
The pound sterling (symbol: £; ISO 4217 currency code: GBP) is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, British Antarctic Territory, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, and Tristan da Cunha.
The Bank of England has a legal monopoly of banknote issuance in England and Wales. For historical reasons, six banks (three in Scotland and three in Northern Ireland), also issue their own banknotes that circulate in the respective areas, but the law requires that the issuing banks hold a sum of Bank of England banknotes (or gold) equivalent to the total value of notes issued.[3]
Versions of the pound sterling issued by Crown dependencies and other areas are regulated by their local governments and not by the Bank of England. Three British Overseas Territories (Gibraltar, Saint Helena, and the Falkland Islands) also have currencies called pounds which are at par with the pound sterling.