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According to Reuters, the pound was down to a session low against the euro, with the European currency climbing to 87.38p, having been priced at 87.12p prior to the statistics being released.
The British currency dipped to around $1.6190 against its US counterpart - down from $1.6230 beforehand - after the Office for National Statistics said that retail sales volumes rose 0.3 per cent month on month in December.
This, the news source said, was substantially below the 1.1 per cent increase analysts had forecast and was the lowest for the month since 2007.
Vicky Redwood, economist at Capital Economics, told the BBC that there would have been some boost in sales from consumers spending more ahead of the VAT increase.
"Without this, sales would presumably have dropped," she noted.
Posted by Greg Secker
