Yesterday, I found this in local newspaper (The Star), about How More Malaysian buying pound sterling as currency weakens nowadays because of the economic slowdown. I have some old and New Pound Sterling in My collection and i do think that it is one of the Beautiful banknote in this worlds. Will try to find them and post about pound paper money next time.
Here is the news about the weakening pound.
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The Star, Wednesday January 14, 2009
PETALING JAYA: The weakening of the pound is prompting more Malaysians to buy into the currency, especially parents with children studying or about to study in Britain, checks at money-changers showed. And yes, say economists, now is a good time to buy the pound although there could be further weakening.
“Don’t try to find a bottom because you will never find it. The current level of 5.24 (ringgit to the pound) is not bad,” said CIMB Group Sdn Bhd group treasury and investments deputy chief executive officer Lee Kok Kwan.
Since the beginning of the credit crisis about 18 months ago, the pound has plunged 25% against the local unit and 28% against the US dollar. Since the beginning of the credit crisis 18 months ago, the pound has plunged 25% against the ringgit and 28% against the US dollar — AFP
Lee believes that the pound would continue to fall, given that Britain was going through a protracted slowdown.
“But anyone buying for ‘real’ use, like parents who intend to send their children to Britain for studies, can buy now, given that the pound has depreciated significantly.
“They should start buying now, if they have not started, and average out their cost ,” he said.
In relative terms, the average tuition costs for a British undergraduate degree of about £9,000 have dropped by a substantial RM10,000 now compared with a year ago. With the ringgit at 6.36 per pound then, a parent would have probably paid RM57,240 in tuition fees for the duration of his child’s tertiary studies. At the current rate of 5.24, a parent would only have to cough up slightly over RM47,000. RAM Holdings Bhd chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng concurred with Lee that the pound could continue to weaken until there was “recovery in sight” for the British economy.
The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee cut rates by one percentage point to 2% in December, the lowest since 1951, and expectations are that rates will continue to fall close to zero as the central bank and Treasury strive to save the ailing economy. A cut in interest rates will weaken further the pound. “Yes, it should continue to weaken as it suffers the direct impact of the financial crisis,” Yeah said. Still, at current levels, the pound appeared to be relatively cheap compared with other currencies, he said.
The sterling pound hit its lowest against the ringgit in 1997 at 3.97 while the highest was 7.56 in 1998 after Malaysia introduced capital-control measures.
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I try checking the price of pound for today with XE converter on the bottom of my page and the price is 5.21796 (Ringgit to Pound). You can try to convert the price of your own monetary system with this XE converter. It is a good news for some but also a hard time for some of us.
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