Chris Redfern Moneycorp

Sterling's two main competitors were the Canadian dollar and the Norwegian krone, both of which tempted investors with the possibility of higher interest rates.

With the krone, it was a change in message from Norges Bank. It dropped its usual warning that krone rates could fall if the economy were to need help. For the Loonie it was a jump in inflation as the core consumer price index rose from 1.7 per cent to 2.1 per cent.

That was enough for the Canadian dollar to overtake the resurgent pound but the krone had to make do with bronze. Sterling had a second good week as investors first anticipated then welcomed the Scottish referendum result. The pound peaked early on Friday morning when the outcome became clear. It touched a two-year high against the euro and a six-year high against the Japanese yen, which remains on the defensive as a result of the Bank of Japan's money-printing efforts.

Sterling received additional assistance last week from the UK data, which showed core inflation ticking up to 1.9 per cent and unemployment falling to a six-year low. There is not much potential help on this week's agenda though; the only two meaningful UK ecostats to be found there are for house prices and retail sales.

Elsewhere Euroland publishes its provisional purchasing managers' index readings and the US releases the numbers for durable goods orders and revised second-quarter gross domestic product.

Whether all that allows the pound to continue higher is open to debate. Yes, Scotland is still part of the UK but the referendum has thrown up at least as many constitutional questions as it has answered, notably the idea of English votes for English laws. Investors dislike uncertainty and a degree of it is still attached to sterling.