1 Bristol Pound

The Bristol Pound was a local complementary currency launched in 2012 by a community interest company in partnership with Bristol Credit Union, which held equivalent sterling reserves — making it one of the few such schemes in Britain with a regulated banking backstrate. The 2009–2015 date range reflects design development and pilot phases rather than a continuous issuing window. Notes were accepted by several hundred local businesses and, briefly, by the city council for payment of business rates — a rare instance of a UK local authority formally engaging with a parallel currency.

The scheme wound down in 2020. Print runs were modest and redemption rates low, leaving a reasonable number of unspent notes in circulation as souvenirs rather than currency.