By Gary HowesThe pond sterling to New Zealand dollar exchange rate (GBP/NZD) is trading 0.31 pct lower than seen at Friday's close. The exchange rate is at 1.9785 in late morning trade in London.

(Note, the above are spot market quotes, your bank will affix a spread at their discretion. An independent FX provider will however guarantee to undercut your bank's offer, thus delivering more currency. Please find out more here).

"The Kiwi moved remarkably at the end of last week to regain almost four cents against the pound. The worse than expected manufacturing and construction PMI data from the UK helped fuel this rally," says Sash Nugent at Caxton FX.

Today's below-expectation release of the December Services PMI has only exacerbated the GBP's decline.

According to Nugent the outlook continues to favour the NZ dollar at his stage.

Currency markets today

The HSBC/Markit services PMI data (down from 52.5 to 50.9) pulled the Asian stocks lower and JPY higher.

In the Euro-zone, the PMI services were flat-to-positive (except for Germany), followed by unexpectedly weak number out of UK. While the FX markets gave limited reaction to data, the stream will continue with US ISM Non-manufacturing composite in the afternoon.

In the emerging world, the Turkish lira advanced to fresh all-time-high of 2.1948 (at the time of writing) on the ongoing / unresolved bribery scandal.