The pound fell back slightly ahead of the weekend, as sterling came off its lows. The pound closed at 94.05p sterling from 94.44p on Thursday and at 2.6804 deutschmarks from DM2.6859, with no decision expected at this weekend's EU finance ministers meeting on entry rates to monetary union.

Mr Jim Power, chief economist at Bank of Ireland, said that overseas institutions had bought back considerable amounts of the currency early in the week to offset large sales of the pound in April Dealers estimate that almost £500 million was bought by one institution on Tuesday and Wednesday.