When will the U.K. convert to the Euro as an official currency?
"I read an account of why the U.K. didn't end up with the euro as its currency in David M. Smick's great book The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy. Chapter 6 of the book is titled ""Nothing Stays the Same: The 1992 Sterling Crisis.""  Here's a very brief excerpt; emphasis mine: [...] As this story shows, such   blindness to the realities of a   changing world can be very dangerous.   In this case, the result was the   brutal collapse of the British pound,   which explains why the British people still use their own currency, the   pound or sterling, and not the euro.   The events that unfolded in the autumn   of 1992 were totally unforeseen, yet   they reshaped the European monetary   world and represent a phenomenon that   continues to impact global economies. [...] Smick's account of the events around 1992 runs about 28 pages.  Here's my version, in a nutshell: At the time, Britain was part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, or ERM. The belief in Europe was that by uniting currencies under a common mechanism, Europe could gain influence in international financial policy largely dominated by the United States.  The ERM was a precursor to monetary union.  The Maastricht Treaty would eventually create the European Union and the euro. Britain joined the ERM later than other nations, in 1990, and after some controversy. Being part of the ERM required member nations to agree to expand and contract their currencies only within certain agreed upon limits called currency bands. Due to the way this had been structured, Germany's strong position placed it at the top of the system. At some point in 1992, Germany had raised interest rates to curb future inflation.  However, Britain wanted Germany to cut rates – Britain was not in as enviable a position, economically speaking, and its currency was under pressure.  The currency band system would put Britain in a tighter spot with Germany raising rates. Enter George Soros, the Hungarian billionaire, a.k.a. ""the man who broke the Bank of England.""  Soros took a huge short position against the Sterling. He believed the Sterling was overvalued relative to the German deutsche mark, and Britain would be forced to devalue its currency and realign with respect to the ERM.  Other traders followed and also sold the Sterling short. With much pressure on the currency, the Bank of England had to buy up Sterling in order to maintain its agreement under the ERM.  Of course, they needed to borrow other currencies to do this.  Soon the BoE was in over its head defending the Sterling, realizing the exchange rate it needed to maintain under the ERM simply wasn't sustainable. Britain was forced to withdraw from the ERM on Black Wednesday, September 16th, 1992. And so, Britain does not use the euro today – and any talk of doing so is politically controversial.  Therefore I wouldn't bet on Britain adopting the euro any time soon – too many of the players are still in politics and remember 1992 well.  I think if Britain adopting the euro is ever to happen, it will be when the memory of 1992 has faded away. BTW, George Soros made off with more than US$1 billion.  Soros is a very smart guy." Not anytime soon, I suspect, but not necessarily for financial reasons. I found this interesting, including the link to the five tests, but I think that this topic is only partially judged through financial eyes, there's a lot of political issues around this with national identity/immigration issues already in the spot light as well as political aspirations. If there will be a call in the near future to join the Euro, how would that reflect on the financial industry in the UK from a PR perspective? and on the political leadership and how it managed the financial crisis?  I believe that it is in the interest of all the people in the high positions to show the country getting back on track rather than making ground shaking moves. But what do I know....:-) When economies are strong, it is particularly alluring to have a single currency as it makes trade and tourism simpler and helps reduce costs. The problem comes when individual member economies get into trouble. Because the Eurozone is a loose grouping of nations, there is no direct equivalent of the US Federal government to coordinate a response, there is instead an odd mixture of National and Central government that makes it harder to get a unified approach to the economy (OK, it's maybe not so different to the US in reality).  This lack of flexibility means that some of the key levers of international finance are compromised, for example a weak economy can't float its currency to improve exports. Similarly individual country's interest rates can't be adjusted to balance spending. I suspect the main reason though is political and based on concepts of sovereignty and national pride. The UK does the majority of its trade with the Eurozone, so the pros would possibly outweigh the cons, but the UK as a whole (and some of our papers in particular) have always regarded Europe with suspicion. Most Brits only speak English and find France and Germany a strange and obtuse place. The (almost) common language makes it easier to relate to the US and Canada than our near neighbours. It seems the perception amongst the political establishment is that any attempt to join the Euro is political suicide, while that is the case it is unlikely to happen. Purely from a personal perspective, I'd welcome the Euro except it means a lot of the products I routinely buy would become a lot more expensive if price is 'harmonised'. For an example compare the price of the iPod Touch in the UK (£209.99) to France(€299). The French pay £262 at the current exchange rate, which is close to 25% more. Ouch. See also my question about Canada adopting the US Dollar I can't see it happening because most of the population seems to be against it, even if their reasoning on the whole is wrong. Theoretically, people are against the Euro here as a result of national pride. If it's the best thing to do for the good of the country then national pride shouldn't be taken into account. It'd be perverse in the sense that you'd be stopping your country from progressing because you love it. That doesn't add up. Personally, I don't think it's possible for an entire continent to have a single currency. There's too many different countries and cultures involved. For it to work you'd have to have centralised fiscal policy and this makes no sense at all for a continent. What works here might not work in France or Germany. What works in Greece might not work here. etc, etc. The make up of each country's economies is different. A lot of smaller (and/or weaker) countries did not have much choice when Germany and France decided to rename the German Mark as the Euro, as most of their trade was already in Marks.  It was even common for their population to have their savings in Marks.   So the question was. Do we wish to have to use the Euro   with or without a seat on the board? It was a no brainer for them at the time... The UK has a lot of trade with the USA and other countries outside of the Euro zone, so we are unlikely to have to join the Euro.    So in the end it comes down to this point -  if the British voters trust a UK government they elected more or less than an EEC government mostly elected by people in the other EEC countries. I don’t think the UK will be joining the Euro anytime soon, but everything can (and will) change with the passage of time.  (After all the USA used to be part of the pound trading zone and please can you pay us all the back dated tax you stop paying after a little tea party!) Update: Given what has just happen to Grease and Spain and the Conservative Party has the most seats in the UK parliament, I don’t think the UK will not be joining the Euro for the next 5 years at least In many countries in Europe the prices shot through the roof, so it is not all positive. Also the switching country gives out lot of monetary control that is not welcomed by many.  I think that UK is not going to change to euro for a long long time.
"The basic idea is that money's worth is dependent on what it can be used to buy. The principal driver of monetary exchange (using one type of currency to ""buy"" another) is that usually, transactions for goods or services in a particular country must be made using that country's official currency. So, if the U.S. has something very valuable (let's say iPhones) that people in other countries want to buy, they have to buy dollars and then use those dollars to buy the consumer electronics from sellers in the U.S. Each country has a ""basket"" of things they produce that another country will want, and a ""shopping list"" of things of value they want from that other country. The net difference in value between the basket and shopping list determines the relative demand for one currency over another; the dollar might gain value relative to the Euro (and thus a Euro will buy fewer dollars) because Europeans want iPhones more than Americans want BMWs, or conversely the Euro can gain strength against the dollar because Americans want BMWs more than Europeans want iPhones. The fact that iPhones are actually made in China kind of plays into it, kind of not; Apple pays the Chinese in Yuan to make them, then receives dollars from international buyers and ships the iPhones to them, making both the Yuan and the dollar more valuable than the Euro or other currencies. The total amount of a currency in circulation can also affect relative prices. Right now the American Fed is pumping billions of dollars a day into the U.S. economy. This means there's a lot of dollars floating around, so they're easy to get and thus demand for them decreases. It's more complex than that (for instance, the dollar is also used as the international standard for trade in oil; you want oil, you pay for it in dollars, increasing demand for dollars even when the United States doesn't actually put any oil on the market to sell), but basically think of different currencies as having value in and of themselves, and that value is affected by how much the market wants that currency." About the inflation or low interest rates in both the countries is out of the equation especially since rupee is always a low currency compared to Euro. You cannot make profit in Euros using rupee or vice-versa. It all depends on where you want to use the money, in India or Europe? If you want use the money from fixed deposit in Europe, then buy fixed deposit in euros from Europe. If you want to use the money in India, then convert the euros and buy FD in India. This would effectively be currency speculation, betting that the Pound will be stronger vs. the Euro in November (or whenever) than it is today.  This would be a profitable transaction if the exchange fees are less than the swing between the two. In my (very limited) experience, exchange fees are going to be at least a few percent, and she's going to have to do the exchange twice if she wants to turn current Euros into Pounds and back into Euros later; that's at least a 6% hit.   I'd recommend against this.  While it's quite plausible for the two currencies to move more than 6% against each other in that time, it's also quite possible for them to move the other way, causing her a large loss.   The unfortunate thing about large, heavily traded things like GBP/EUR is that you're very unlikely to have some information that the big traders don't.  While lots of people think that the pound is going to become stronger, just as many people think that the Euro is going to be stronger.  These two camps are constantly bidding against each other, resulting in the 1.15 Pounds/Euro exchange rate as of this writing.  The current price and current direction that the line is moving in no way tells you what it's going to do next. You probably can get away with only updating the exchange rates once a day and specify that any prices quoted in units other than your home currency are estimates only. If you're planning to accept more than one currency as payment, I'd (a) see about whatever regulations there are for doing so, and (b) build in a nice spread for yourself if you're allowed to, since it is a service you're providing to your customers.  If you Google currency converter the first result is just that: a currency converter. Remember that converting from EU to USD and the other way around always costs you money, at least 0.5% per conversion. Additionally, savings accounts in EU and USA have different yields, you may want to compare which country offers you the best yields and move your money to the highest yielding account. This is very insightful, I think. As an open question, consider what *downside* a nation (or bank) has to acknowledging bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. Obviously nations may lose some monetary control by endorsing bitcoin, but I don't know if there's much of a downside for banks considering bitcoin's easy conversion in to USD.   If anything, I feel like most of the problems for banks surrounding cryptos would be regulatory. "If I understand right, you're asking whether it's better to withdraw a currency that is more valuable or less valuable, in currency units, than your home country's currency.  That is, using your examples, you're asking whether it's better to withdraw euros when the euro is worth more than the Pakistani rupee, or when the euro is worth less. The answer is that it doesn't matter.  What matters is whether the euro is worth more Pakistani rupees than it will be worth later.  For instance, suppose that the exchange rate today is such that you can buy 115 PKR for 1 EUR, or equivalently, you can buy 1 EUR for 115 PKR.  (Realistically the rates would be different due to conversion fees, but I'll keep it this way for simplicitly.)  If tomorrow the exchange rate changes so that you need 120 PKR to buy 1 EUR, then you have to spend more rupees to buy a euro, so this is bad for you; it would have been better to buy earlier (when it was only 115 PKR for a euro).  If on the other hand the exchange rate shfits the other way, so that you only need 110 PKR to buy a euro, then this benefits you. because you are spending less than you would have if you had bought earlier.  So, in these terms, you want to change rupees into euros when one euro is worth fewer rupees (and you want to change euros into rupees when one euro is worth more rupees). It doesn't matter how many PKR you spend for a Euro in raw numbers.  All that matters is, are you spending more for that one Euro than you would have spent had you bought earlier or later?  Indeed, for your specific example, it is unlikely that one Pakistanee rupee will be worth more than one Euro in the foreseeable future; as far as I can see, the Euro has never been worth less than about 50 rupees. In practice, of course, it's hard to know whether the current rate is ""good"".  You can't easily know how currency rates will change in the future.  If you are just visiting for a short period of time, it probably doesn't make sense to worry about the exchange rates.  Just take out as much money as you need when you need it.  You're just as likely to lose money as to save money if you try to game the exchange rates.  If you're staying in a place for a longer period of time, it might be worth pulling a bit extra out at a time when the rate is especially favorable, but you're still unlikely to see major savings in the long run." I have a bank account in the US from some time spent there a while back. When I wanted to move most of the money to the UK (in about 2006), I used XEtrade who withdrew the money from my US account and sent me a UK cheque. They might also offer direct deposit to the UK account now. It was a bit of hassle getting the account set up and linked to my US account, but the transaction itself was straightforward. I don't think there was a specific fee, just spread on the FX rate, but I can't remember for certain now - I was transfering a few thousand dollars, so a relatively small fixed fee would probably not have bothered me too much.