A REPORT commissioned to set out a comprehensive currency plan for an independent Scotland will hopefully give a “definitive answer” for Yessers, the group behind the research has said.
The Scottish Currency Group (SCG) has commissioned Dr Thibault Laurentjoye to go into detail about the options available for Scotland's currency post-independence.
Laurentjoye, assistant professor at Aalborg University business school in Denmark, has previously written a report looking at currency options for an independent Wales, published in 2024.
It was submitted to the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales which looked at how the country is governed and options for change, including independence.
As well as looking at an independent Wales using sterlingisation or setting up its own currency, Laurentjoye (pictured below) also set out various other options.
And now, the academic and economist is turning his attention to Scotland’s currency possibilities.
Tim Rideout, convener and founder of SCG, said he hoped the findings would give Yes groups, and the SNP leadership, a “definitive answer” on the currency question.
“We came across what Professor Laurentjoye had done for Wales about this time last year, and we were impressed by that,” he explained.
“Nobody can accuse him of being biased or anything like that.
“He is a monetary economist who specializes in foreign exchange and exchange rate regimes, things like that. He has all the academic credentials in order to give an answer that is beyond challenge.”
“The aim for us is to have a position that the entire Yes movement will be able to coalesce around and most importantly finally get the SNP leadership to finally accept that you can’t use the GDP pound if you also want to be independent,” Rideout (pictured below) added.
The research will be released in two stages. The first in October this year, which will largely be a “refresh” of the Welsh paper but from a Scottish perspective, Rideout explained, with the final report due to be published in October 2026.
“The final report will go into things like the recommended exchange rate regime, the estimated balance of payments, and contradictions of what the currency is likely to do on the financial markets and things like that, which the Welsh paper didn't cover at all,” he added.
Ian Stewart, chair of the SCG banking and finance group, said that after reading Laurentjoye’s research it was “obvious” that a paper looking at the Scottish equivalent would be “very useful”.
“It would hopefully act as a counterbalance to the GERS figures, which are regurgitated every year and show Scotland a very poor light, largely because the GERS figures most of them are best guesses, and of course, they're loaded with UK expenditure that an independent Scotland wouldn't undertake,” he explained.
“If Westminster is hostile to independence, all they need to do, and this is the key to our proposal, is the interbank payment settlement system,” he said.
“If that remains in Sterling, a hostile Westminster could switch that off. They could say, five minutes after independence, well, ‘I'm sorry, we're switching off your interbank settlement system’, which would mean that when you go to the shop or go to the petrol station, you can't pay for your purchases.
“That would be catastrophic for independence, of course. It's a strategic issue to prepare for issuing our own currency on day one of independence.”
Rideout previously had motions at two SNP conferences on an independent Scotland adopting its own currency backed by the party’s membership in 2019.
In the Scottish Government’s independence whitepapers, the policy is that Scotland would use the pound sterling, moving to introducing a new currency, the Scottish pound, “as soon as practicable”.
“The change would take place as soon as practicable through a careful, managed and responsible transition, guided by criteria and economic conditions rather than a fixed timetable” the 2022 paper set out.
