Decimal Day Board. Consideration was given to introducing a new major unit of currency worth ten shillings in the old currency: suggested names included the "new pound", the "royal" and the "noble". This would have resulted in the "decimal penny" being worth only slightly more than the old penny (this approach was adopted, for example, when South Africa, Australia and New Zealand decimalised in the 1960s, adopting respectively the South African rand, Australian dollar and New Zealand dollar equal in value to 10 shillings). But Halsbury decided, in view of the pound sterling's importance as a reserve currency, that the pound should
British currency in the Middle East British West Indies. East Africa and the Middle East were late additions to the British Empire, and by then, the British government had already learned from experience in Canada, India and Hong Kong that it is highly impractical to impose a new currency in the place of already existing practices. In the history of Britain's involvement in the Middle East region, the sterling coinage never formed a part of the circulating currency. The sterling unit of account, however, entered the region through Palestine in 1927, in the form of the Palestine pound. The Palestine pound was introduced into Palestine in